


When Pigs Fly

by audreyslove



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast Fusion, F/M, inspired by the magicians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-07-12 08:14:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19942993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreyslove/pseuds/audreyslove
Summary: Regina is saved by a man suffering from an unlikely affliction.  Based on Sean Maguire's latest role on the magicians.





	1. Chapter 1

Regina wakes on a cold stone ground with a throbbing headache, quite disoriented.

She has no idea where she is or how she got there, what time or even what day it is.

Her last memory is of trying to escape the bandits in the woods who were going to take everything she had on her, which was more than usual since she had a particularly successful day at the market, selling all her potions and toxins, the full stock. She wasn’t going to let people take her profit without a fight, even the angry and desperate bandits who chased her into the thick of the forest.

They trapped her, came at her from all angles, pulled her from her horse and told her to give up her money.

She gave up her decoy coins, but they knew she had a more carefully hidden stash somewhere, and began to strip her of her clothes to find it. Oh, she fought back, thrashed and clawed against them, not because she thought a chance of escaping, but because she was going to let her dignity and fortune be stolen from her over her dead body.

And then she saw one collapse, then another, a fuzzy masked man came into view before a sharp blunt smack to the head knocked her out.

And now she’s here, somewhere dark and dry, but safe… it feels safe, anyway.

Her cloak seems to have been washed, as it is now drying by the fire, a small hearth that is the only source of warmth and light in the cavern. 

She has bandages on her arms, fingers, even her leg.

Someone has tended to her. Someone oddly… cared.

She inspects herself carefully. Her knife is nowhere to be found. She is unarmed and that makes her uncomfortable. Her clothes are torn but do not seem to have been removed, may be repositioned to treat a few cuts and scrapes, but she hasn’t been stripped and from what she surmises, she hasn’t been violated. 

Not that it would particularly matter to anyone else, she lost her virtue years ago.

But she needs to know whether she is being held captive here or whether she was taken in by someone kind.

“There is stew on the fire,” says a voice from the darkness. “Fresh water in that bucket. You should eat. You’ve been unconscious all day.”

The voice echoes and bounces across the cave. All she can see is shadows beyond the light of the fire.

“Who is there?” she asks, turning around in circles. 

The voice was kind, soft, if not sad. But she is defenseless, with a pounding headache and dizziness from either hunger or the blow to her head, she isn’t sure, so she must be prepared for what type of man may approach. 

“Stop that,” the voice bellows, more threatened and deeper, “I don’t want to be seen. Go eat what you want of the stew and drink all the water you want, there’s a wineskin you are free to fill for your journey home. And then you are to leave this place. And never return.”

“So I’m not captive?” she asks. her eyes focus off into the distance and catch the spot of something that shines. Eyes, she thinks, off into the darkness. She focuses on him. The eyes move away, trying to remain hidden.

“I said you are free to go after you have had your stew,” he snaps back. “And do not take this shortcut through the woods again, it’s filled with bandits who could ha you.”

“You saved me,” she surmises. “You saved me from those men.”

“I used the fact they were distracted by you to dispose of them,” he responds dryly. “I do not like my forest littered with thieves… or… or people in general. I prefer to live alone.”

“Step into the light,” Regina asks. “I want to thank the man who saved my life.”

“I told you. I do not wish to be seen.”

There’s something in the way he says it that sounds pained, timid, even.

She's known people who live as recluses, who hide their deformities and illnesses, family members who beg her to help those with terrible skin legions, sores and warts that crop up and do not settle. Nothing scares her anymore. 

“I’m an alchemist,” she calls out into the darkness. “I’ve seen many diseases, many things others found shocking, but not to me. There’s nothing you could show me that is worse than what I’ve seen”

The man in the darkness snorts bitterly. “You’ve never seen this, milady.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she taunts back. “You saved me. Now let me save you. I am right, aren’t I? You are hiding because of your physical appearance?

He takes a step forward now, his hood completely covering his face, but she can see his form, well enough, to know he’s not hobbled, not crippled or hunchback.

“You are in good shape,” she remarks. “Come on now, I make potions, I will try to find the perfect one to cure what ails you.”

“I am not suffering from any infliction nor disease,” the man says slowly. “I have been… cursed.”

“Cursed?” 

Regina knows of curses. Her own mother was a witch and had cursed many. But magic is so rare now, they say something in the air just dries it up, and even Cora Mills has trouble performing it.

“Cursed by a witch many years ago, and now all hope of the curse being undone is lost,” he says stiffly. “So your potions and toxins won’t help me, my dear. Eat your stew and leave me to my loneliness. Don’t make me show myself. Don’t ever return, I can’t bear to see the look of horror that paints across one’s when they see my face. I just want to live my days out in silence and isolation, is that too much to ask?”

“I’ve treated burn victims,” Regina states, “horrible things. Festering puss-filled boils covering a man’s face and body. Nothing shocks me anymore. I've seen a man covered in warts that looked like tree bark. He lived like you, and it in the forest, hiding from friends and family members.”

“I have no family or friends to worry about me,” he says softly. “I have been cursed to love this way for a hundred years. Everyone I knew and loved is gone. I only have a few years left. And then…” there’s a pause and then his voice sounds all too pleased, desperate, hungry for it “then finally, sweet death.”

“Magic always comes with a price,” Regina recites, memories from her mother’s work surround her. “And any curse can be broken. I believe for it to work a witch must always tell you what may break it.”

He laughs, this masked, sad, man. “Yes, yes you are right! All I have to do is find someone to love me. Someone I love too. While looking like  _ this. _ It’s an impossible task. So go back to your town, to the sunlight and your loved ones. And leave an old man to die. Or what  _ used  _ to be a man.”

There’s so much sorrow in his voice she knows she cannot return, but she also knows that arguing will do no good. 

“Where is my knife?” she asks softly. “I can’t get home without it.

“It’s on your horse, along with the rest of the items you had on the mare’s back. My apologies for removing it, but, you see, I had my own safety to think of..”

She will leave only to return later with motions to treat various infections and legions, catch him unaware and prove she isn’t like the others. She won’t be scared by his appearance. She will show him kindness, return the immense favor he did for her.

But midway through her meal, the cave shines bright with lightning, a roaring thunder claps over, and her horse whinnies in fear as the unmistakable sound of a torrential downpour can be heard from deep within the cave. 

“You should have left by now!” The voice bellows. “Now you are stuck until the storm breaks, and your horse, your horse—

He forgets himself, runs for Rochinate at the same time Regina does.

And when the next bolt of lightning strikes, this time she can catch his profile.

He is right. She has never seen this before. A man, definitely a man, with purple eyes but the nose of a boar, running alongside her as best he can. 

She knows these curses. It’s common for men to be given the features of animals to humiliate them for acting as a barnyard animal.

What did he do, to be given pig-like features?

His hood falls back over his face (she’s now sure how he can run like this, surely he can see nothing with his hood covering his eyes). He helps her with Rochinante, tying the horse into a nearby lean-to shelter where animals have clearly been kept before, there is hay and water, at least. It’s not ideal, but it’s dry, and safe, it will last through the storm.

“When the storm passes you will  _ leave _ ,” he almost begs from behind his hood as he ties Rochinante to her makeshift stable. he does so through thick gloves, and she can’t see them clearly in this darkness but she’s sure they aren’t human fingers there, she knows it. “You will never come back here, do you understand?”

She shouldn’t, but he’s close enough to touch now, and he’s preoccupied enough to let her.

She pulls back the hood and schools her features to be calm, even despite his yelping protest.

She stares him right into those violet eyes, so full of fear of judgment.

“I told you. There is nothing that can shock me anymore.”

He says nothing, his mouth opened, frozen in his shock.

“Let me help you,” she asks. “Let me return the kindness you are giving to me.”

The man readjusts the hood until it’s fully over his face again, but says nothing.

“Please,” she begs. 

“A beautiful young woman like yourself should not spend her time in a dark isolated cave with me,” he mumbles. “You should be out.... doing other young women things. Flitting about, talking to butterflies and hummingbirds and finding a good husband. Go, be free of me, do not surround yourself with the miserable and the hopeless.”

“You are neither,” Regina says firmly. “You saved my life. Do me the favor of at least letting me get to know you.”

She can barely see it, but he gives a little nod, all he can do for her, it seems.

“I cannot stop you from visiting, I suppose,” he grumbles, making his way back to the cave. “But you are wasting your time.”

He could be right, it’s entirely possible his curse is unbreakable. But Regina Mills does not take defeat easily. And, luckily for this poor man, she’s already decided to fight against this curse.

And she will win.


	2. Chapter 2

“I’m going to try to help you either way,” she says over her now lukewarm bowl of stew. “So you might as well just tell me how you came to be this way. The full story.”

“You don’t need to know that,” the man says. He’s managed a way to eat while his face is mostly covered, though it’s hard to watch him angle the spoon under that hood of his.

“For heaven’s sake take that absurd hood off while you eat,” Regina grumbles. “I can’t watch a grown man spill soup that much in one sitting.”

He sighs, taking down his hood entirely.

He’s half bald, less for a thin line of white strands of fuzzy hair that loop from ear to ear. 

He is old and wrinkled, worn and most definitely cursed, but she is not afraid of him. 

“Now, what is your name?”

“I went by Robin of Locksley, back when… when I was a man.”

“You still are a man, you old fool,” Regina responds sternly. “Now, Robin of Locksley, how did this cruel fate befall you? Keep in mind I know of witches. I know why curses are usually enacted.”

“The witch was a woman spurned,” Robin grumbles. “I was… when I was a man, I was, believe it or not, a good looking one. Young, rich and virile. And I behaved as every man of my status would.”

Regina raises her eyebrow. “Elaborate, please?

“I enjoyed women. Many different women, for brief periods of time. Is there a word for that, a man who has no problem with his pick of the ladies, a receiver of virtues, perhaps, or—.”

“I believe the correct terminology is ‘slut’” Regina deadpans.

“No, I was not a woman. It’s different for men, men who filander are celebrated, not demeaned. Anyway, it was all good fun, and I suppose sometimes I may have been a bit… misleading… with the women.”

“Oh?” Regina asks. “Did you make them promises you had no intention of keeping?”

“Promises,” Robin laughs. “Hardly. I may have ... exaggerated my affections in the heat of the moment, you know?”

“What did you say to the witch that cursed you?” Regina asks.

“I believe I told her I loved her in the throes of passion,” Robin says, biting his lip. 

“Well, you’d hardly be the first to cry out something untrue in the middle of… that,” Regina nods. “Is that all?”

“Well, you see, that next morning I had to leave, and she asked me if I lied to her, about loving her, and I… well I didn’t want a _fight,”_ he shrugs.

“Of course not,” Regina mutters.

“So I told a little white lie. I told her that I had to return to my father’s castle, but that I would attempt to win over my father and gain his approval of her. I told her if I could do that, I would be back for her and we could build a life together. And then I left.”

“She thought you were going to marry her,” Regina notes.

“I did heavily imply that — but never said it. I figured in a few days she would assume that my father refused to hear of a noble like myself marrying a commoner like her, and she’d move on with her life.”

“But?” Regina asked.

“But, she was a witch. She tracked me. And confronted me just as I was taking a very literal roll in the hay with one of father’s milk maidens.”

Regina laughs. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes,” he smiles, then grimaces. “She told me I behaved like a pig, and that I would now know what it felt for my disgusting insides to match my outsides. She said I would be cursed to live this way for one hundred years before death, to see new generations grow knowing the legend of the pigman. That that until I can feel true love and receive it back, I will forever be the creature you see before you.” He shakes his head. “Father tried to cure me for a few years, hid me in his castle, let no one see me… but no cure worked, no witch could undo things. Eventually, I couldn’t take my father’s disappointment and disgust, the servant’s fear and morbid amusement at my appearance. So I left, took off into the woods, finding solace in the darkness and solitude here. And I’ve been here ever since.”

“How many years has it been?” Regina asks.

“Ninety-seven,” Robin answers with a smile. “Just three more painful years and I will be free.”

“You will be dead in three years,” she reminds. 

“Yes, that sounds lovely. I’d welcome the break.”

Regina sighs, looking at this pitiful old man, with all his flaws and his past crimes, she can tell there’s something golden underneath. She wants to help.

“I can help. I don’t want to see you die. Ninety-seven years of this is more than enough punishment.”

“Back when I was a wealthy heir of a lucrative estate it seemed finding a woman to love me would be easy,” he shrugs. “I had so much. And chances are I would revert back to a young man, handsome man again. Now… I don’t know. Even if I did find love, what would I become? Would I revert into dust? A skeleton? I was a man of twenty-four when cursed, no one can live until one-hundred-twenty-one.”

“I don’t believe that's how it works,” Regina frowns. “It wouldn’t make sense in the context of the curse, the change is supposed to be a sought after prize, reverting into a frail old man would not be conducive to that. In my experience with curses, you would revert your pre-cursed self.”

“So I'd be handsome and charming again?” he asks, his voice timid, as if he’s afraid to even hope for it.

“Well, I’ve not seen what you looked like before so I’m not qualified to know whether either qualifier is accurate, but you’d assume your pre-cursed appearance. If we can lift the curse, you would most likely be young again.”

“But magic has dried up,” Robin notes. “I’ve heard about it, it’s an epidemic. Few have magic anymore, and those who do have it don’t have the power that witches of my time once did.”

“That’s true,” Regina notes. “But there is magic in _you._ And a good witch can transform that, use that in any curse reversal.”

“Are you a witch?” Robin asks.

“I am only the daughter of one,” Regina admits. “I can’t reverse the curse for you. But I can help you find someone who can. And in the meantime, I’d love to try some potions on you. I’ve long thought that a curse can be undone with the right potion. With science, I mean.”

“On my day we did not believe science and magic could mix,” Robin notes.

“In your day science was hardly anything more than the ramblings of madmen,” Regina waves off. “Things have evolved since then.”

“So… is there a scientist who you can ask to help?” he asks.

“I am that scientist,” she responds.

“I mean like your… your teacher, the man, the man in charge, I mean.”

“There is no man in charge of me,” Regina says sternly. “And there is no one better at this than I. I’m known throughout the village for my potions. I teach to other men. So it will only be me and my lack of penis helping you. Do you want my help or would you like to continue to belittle me?”

“I’m sorry,” Robin aight, “Sorry…. I forget my place. The world has changed, and I have not. I did not mean to offend.”

Regina grits her teeth and nods.

“Will your husband be alright with this project?” he ventures to ask, throwing himself back into the frying pan with his idiotic questions. “I wouldn’t want you to be in trouble on my account.”

“I have no husband,” she fires back. “It is only me and my father, and I assure you that he’s well aware that he does not control me. My life is my own.”

“Again, I did not mean to offend,” Robin says apologetically. “It seemed unfathomable that you are unmarried.”

“Why is that so unfathomable?” she spits back, feeling insulted in whatever he must be thinking, that she’s too old to be a maiden, that she needs protecting more than others, something vile, no doubt. 

“Because you are so beautiful,” Robin whispers. “And intelligent, witty… men like witty, you know. We say we don’t, but the pretty, dumb ones are never as exciting. Men must be enraptured by you.”

“I’ve had some proposals,” Regina admits. “I turned them down. I also don’t find much pleasure in the pretty, dumb ones. And I don’t want a man who thinks of me as his property.”

“But in marriage—“

“Yes, exactly,” Regina fires back. “Marriage is all but a property contract. My body is not for sale, and my mind never will be. So I will never marry. Not in this life. Would you marry if it meant your freedom was restricted, if you were viewed as a prize in a transaction, if you were seen as being shipped off from one owner to another?”

He seems to think about this, to truly ponder it.

“No, milady, I don’t think I’d like that much at all.”

“My father doesn’t treat me as his property. And since no other man will do me the same courtesy, I have no desire to marry,” Regina says with an emphatic nod. “So that’s that.”

“I’m sorry, I fear I keep insulting you quite unintentionally,” he says softly.

“It’s fine. I can see more clearly why that witch cursed you,” she teases. She watches his face fall, the expression over his wrinkled pig flesh a sad sight to behold. “Robin, you saved me. You cared for me. You didn’t… touch me or use me. You didn’t treat me as your property. That makes you better than many men in this world.”

“But I am still—“

“You are a product of your time, with the memories and teachings of a rich noble inhibiting you from seeing how warped your view is,” Regina tells him as she feeds a nearby branch to the fire. “I can teach you about women, too, you know. How to see them as equals, I mean.”

He looks shocked at the word _equals_ but has the good sense to remain quiet.

“There may be a chance a woman could fall in love with you. Perhaps, if a witch cannot undo the spell, we may find you someone. But you’d have to win her over not with good looks or charm, not with money or prestige. You’d have to win her over with kindness and decency.”

He looks thoroughly unconvinced. “I shall die alone before we find anyone desperate enough to love me,” he says while tending to the flames of the fire. “I think we can give up on that.”

Regina isn’t entirely sure of that. His appearance is quite dreadful, but she’s seen men and women who are horrendously maimed and yet they are still loved. 

She’s seen women and men love in old age— when skin sags and droops in the most unappealing of ways.

There is something inside him worth loving. She knows this in her heart.

Someone will just have to see it.

But he won’t be convinced of any of this, so she doesn’t argue with him. Instead, she provides another excuse. 

“A witch may be more inclined to transform a man who is respectful of women. If you can show them, demonstrate through your actions and your words, that you have learned how women are to be treated, they may work harder, dig deeper, into finding that cure.”

She gives him a bit to think it over, his brow furrowed, his cloven paws wrapped tightly around his drinking cup.

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” he concedes, his eyes looking up at her, a sparkle of hope in them for the first time in what Regina thinks must have been a long while.

“The rain has stopped,” Regina notes, trying to peer through the woods. “I think I could make it home.”

“Don’t be ridiculous; it’s dark out,” Robin scolds. “You’ll stay here till morning light. Come, I have a bed for you.”

He carries a lantern into the darkness of the cave, and sure enough, there is a makeshift bedroom and even a little kitchen area, wood- carved shelves and cabinets, and a little bed and nightstand in the corner.

She knows the bed is his, can see the indent his body has made in the stuffing of the makeshift mattress. and besides, he’s unlikely to have a spare bed for guests, being a recluse and everything. 

“And where will you sleep? She asks, unsure if she can take an old man’s bed, even if that old man is part pig.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” Robin says, holding up some thick velvet blankets and a feather stuffed pillow. “I’ll be quite alright on the floor. “I know I should treat you as an equal but I absolutely cannot allow a woman to sleep on the floor. Particularly if that woman has treated me with the kindness she has tonight.”

It’s those moments, those words, the soft smile he shows her when he says them, those things that make her determined to save him. 

He is certainly no angel, but then again, neither is she.

He deserves a second chance.


	3. Chapter 3

“Who taught you to cook?” she asks, as Robin roasts a pot of something on the makeshift stove he’s concocted. It smells good, and given his lack of herbs and ingredients, it is a surprise he manages to pull so much flavor from these meals.

She’s enjoyed many with him over the last few weeks. She’s actually enjoyed his company far more than she thought she would. When he talks of his past he still has a bit of ego over the man he was. But now he is humble. And protective, actually, in a way that makes her feel warm and safe around him.

“I had to teach myself. Living alone meant I had to learn how to feed myself, how to keep things relatively clean to avoid sickness or rodent infestations ... and then of course, the arduous process of teaching myself to sew. Made more difficult by the fact I don’t exactly have the best in the way of fingers anymore,” he looks at his clothes, and the stitching is far from perfect, but it keeps his clothes together, anyway. “I have a deep appreciation for women’s work. It’s not nearly as easy as I once suspected.”

“It’s not _women’s work,”_ Regina corrects, though most of the rest of the world still believe this there’s no reason Robin should. “There are many men, poor and middle-class bachelors, older widowers, men who must learn to care for themselves. And plenty of women who do not see a stitch or cook as much as a pot of boiling water.”

“Oh yes, I knew of plenty of those women,” Robin rushes to say. My mother and of course the other women of prestige, perhaps I should call it a servant woman’s work.”

“It’s just _work_ ,” Regina sighs. “Even in households without servants, it is not solely the woman’s job to stitch and cook.”

“I see,” he says puzzled, “So your father cooks?”

“Occasionally,” she says. Her father is dreadful but he tries, at least.

“And sews?”

“In our case, I handle that,” Regina admits. “But that doesn’t mean some others may handle things differently. A man who can cook and sew is definitely a prize.”

“Oh,” Robin frowns. “I suppose that is a slight upside to living decades as a recluse. I can do household chores.”

“It is. Most men are helpless,” Regina responds flippantly.

She frowns and inspecting at him. He is quite put together in some circumstances, not so in others. He actually has been looking a bit better in ways she cannot place. Or maybe she’s just grown accustomed to the way he looks and has found things to appreciate. Like the softness in his eyes, the sincerity in his expressive face. She barely focuses on the snout anymore, really. It’s not so hard to see past.

But the tufts of unbrushed white hair must go.

“Sit down on that stump over there,” she commands, taking out a dull pair of scissors.

“Why, exactly?”

“Because your hair is an absolute disaster and I’m going to cut it. Did no one teach you to use a comb?”

“Didn’t seem much use in one,” Robin grumbles. “When all of you is a complete mess, why bother?”

“You are not a complete mess,” Regina insists, “That hair is by far the most offensive part of you.”

“You’re kind but I would think my snout and hooves still outshine my hair on the ugly scale.”

“Not to me,” Regina shrugs. “But I like tidy hair.”

She cuts it as close as she can to the scalp. This will leave him nearly completely bald, but much better looking. At least, far less unkempt.

While brushing stray strands off his neck and lower back she notices the tone, the definition in the muscles there.

Robin tenses under her touch, the muscles ripple. “Are you okay?” she asks, worried she’s somehow offended him by grazing over an old wound

“Yes, yes of course. It’s just, um, I am not used to being touched. It’s a… quite an interesting sensation. Just one to which I’m not quite accustomed as of yet.”

“Oh,” Regina smiles to herself. He won’t say it, but he _likes_ the feeling, it’s just new and unexpected. And who doesn’t like this, the feeling of a hand on their neck and back? She can’t imagine living without touch of any type, for so long.

So while she cuts, she takes her time wiping the hair off him, more purposely paying attention to the parts that have fallen onto his skin, watching the muscles flex and relax under her palms.

Then it hits her. This is not the back of an old man.

“How is it,” she asks, “that a man of your age was able to overpower three grown, young men?”

There’s a long pause, and he shivers as she slides a hand carefully around the back of his ear. Then he speaks softly, “I suppose that’s the curse, isn’t it? I can’t die for another few years, and being in good shape prevents me from being in that situation.”

“Your body has not aged. It’s… changed, the skin may be pinker, a bit tougher, but only your face has aged. That is curious.”

When Robin next speaks, he sounds confused.

“When I was first transformed into a pig, I wasn’t older. But I did have quite a… grotesque form. At one point I had quite the potbelly. But I that left me years ago, not too long after I left my father’s estate. I guess my diet changed… I don’t know, I was always fit before I turned into a pig. Never really understood _why_ the body changed from the fit to slovenly, then back to… I suppose decent shape.”

“It’s interesting,” Regina mutters, going over the details he’s told her of the curse again. For his insides to match his outsides. “Has anything else changed?”

“Oh, it is possible that my hands became…. More usable? Or I just figured out how to use them, I cannot tell. They still _look_ hideous. But they…”

“You have opposable thumbs,” Regina notes. “Unlike a pig.”

“Well I’ve no idea what that means, I don't see a thumb amongst this nonsense—“

She grabs one of his hands and points to the long, curved finger on the end. “This is your thumb. See how it faces opposite of your other fingers? it allows you to grip and hold things the way a pig cannot. Now has it always bent that way, or did that change?”

“I don’t know,” Robin groans. “I was fairly helpless then. It’s like I didn’t know how anything worked and I hated even looking at my…. well, hooves. But then I had to use them, and it became easier. I can’t say why.”

Regina nods. This has to mean something

“Would you have saved me before you transformed? The man you were, would he have done that?” Regina wipes the last of his hair away and sits beside him.

“I believe so,” Robin says, but there is a bit of shame in his voice. “I was a bit self-absorbed back then. I would have attempted a rescue, but not for entirely selfless reasons.”

He lets the words hang as she struggles to understand.

“You mean you’d hope I’d pay you back in some way? Some way that consisted of me being naked, I assume?”

“I was a bit of a cad,” Robin admits. “You’re a beautiful woman. I’m sorry. I can only be honest and from what I remember of myself, I’d be expecting your gratitude to express itself in that way, yes.”

Regina snorts and rolls her eyes. He smiles back at her sheepishly. She really likes him. Oh, he’s a kind-hearted man, she’s convinced that even before the witch transformed him, there had been a good man struggling to come out. He has something within him she doesn’t see often in people.

“What changed over these last few years? What made you think differently, about helping people?”

He shrugs but appears to be giving her question thought, so she doesn’t speak. She waits for him to figure it out.

“I think… I was treated with such disregard and disgust it somewhat opened my eyes to the way others are similarly treated,” Robin sighs. “I do like my solitude. I do want those men out of my forest. But I also don’t like to see injustice like that. People hurt like that. But I never did, you know. I might not have risked life and limb to save them all, I might have liked the prestige and praise that came with every heroic deed a bit too much… but a part of me always had a soft spot for the underdog, I suppose.”

“That’s interesting,” Regina murmurs. “Perhaps there was more good in you all along. You just had clear away all that ego to get to it.”

“Do you have any potion for that?” he asks with a bitter laugh.

“Not yet, but I will research it,” Regina smiles, grabbing a mirror from her pocket and flashing it in front of Robin’s face. “See, look how much better you look without that tangled mess!”

But Robin shrinks away from the mirror as if it were kryptonite, his eyes shut tight and hands in front of his face.

“I can’t… don’t… please don’t make me look at myself,” he begs.

He is well over a hundred years old and still acts so childish sometimes.

“You know I’m certain you look worse in your head,” Regina mutters, placing the mirror back in her pocket. “You should have a look at some point. Stop being a coward.”

“It’s been years,” he admits. “That’s why… that’s why the hair has become a mess. I’d need a mirror to fix it. And I don’t want to suffer through that again. Every time it’s worse than I remembered, not better.”

“You’re a fool but I suppose I already knew that,” Regina sighs as she stands up and walks towards him. Back to work it is. “Come on, I need a bit of your blood.”

“Oh you wretched woman,” Robin groans sarcastically, “Draining me of my very life.”

“Mm, stop complaining. I am testing to see how mine reacts, too.”

A few weeks ago, Regina had brought a few her vials and herbs with her for some makeshift laboratory. She even brought some things left by her mother from before she left. They are better suited in Robin’s cave now since she does most of her testing there in the woods with him.

It takes a great deal of trust to leave the potions behind and in his possession, but she trusts him. Some were made by magic, others are magical ingredients that are quite rare. Every day she thinks of a new way to test, to see if he has some reaction her blood does not, something that may illuminate a vulnerability in the curse.

So far, his blood reacts just like hers to every mixture she’s come up with.

But it’s still worth trying, isn’t it?

Amongst Cora’s items is a label with a figure of a man on it. She found it yesterday in a big box of items hidden deep in her mother’s old storage bin.

Regina uses it sparingly, just a few eye droplets into a small bowl of Robin’s blood.

It fizzes and sparks, turns black, then blue, purple, and settles on red.

Interesting.

When she places a few eye droplets into a vial of her blood, the liquid is absorbed by her blood, keeping the red color.

No color change. No spark.

“Interesting,” she remarks, staring at the liquid.

“What?” he asks, peering over at the vials. “They both look the same.”

“They _reacted_ quite differently,” she explains. “And this bottle of my mother’s… well just look at the label.”

He inspects it, looks at the picture on it and smiles. He’s about to take a swig when Regina snatches it from his hands.

“Don’t do that!” she cries. “We don’t know how this potion works! If you drink that it could kill you!”

“Oh, could it?” Robin asks, “I’ve been waiting for a near century for my death. It’s a risk I'm willing to take.”

He reaches for the bottle but Regina clutches it tightly to her chest because she will be damned if she has to watch another good man die in front of her. “No. I’m going to look into this and I am going to change you back. _Safely_.”

“You worry too much about me,” he tells her, looking more grateful than he should for her simple desire to not poison him.

“I worry the _perfect_ amount,” she counters. “Now shut it. I have an old spell book my mother once used. I just have to look at this and see what it is and how it’s used. I’ve seen potions that are sprinkled over a person, ingested, rubbed on palms or on hair, let into blood, boiled and turned into magical steam… let me figure out what this is and how to use it. Okay?”

“I’ll trust you,” He assures. “Go on, take your time, it’s not like I have any plans for the next three years.”

“I’ll figure it out,” she says, and this time, she believes it.

He’s a good man, and the world will be better with him participating in it, rather than just living as a recluse, waiting to die.


	4. Chapter 4

“I think I figured it out,” Robin teases as Regina has her nose buried in a spellbook. “You have a thing for pork.”

She giggles. God, he loves her laugh.

“Hush, you.”

“It’s the only explanation I can think of for why you haven’t just let me try the potion already,” he shrugs.

He loves the way she responds to his little jokes, how her nose crinkles, how her eyes turn into these little slits when he makes her laugh. He is _quite_ fond of her.

If he were a hundred years younger, he’d be putty in her hands, would he willing to do anything to get her attention, her love. She is the opposite of everything he was taught to look for in a wife. She barely can cook, her ambitions and dreams consist of becoming successful and wealthy in her alchemy studies, not of being a kept woman with a barrel of children. She is loud and opinionated, brazen and strong-willed, occasionally crass, bucks at social conventions, she is beautiful and intelligent, witty and brave, kind and so caring.

He never really entertains the thought of them of course, as much as he is enraptured by her. She is too beautiful, and he too old and ugly. Still, he can’t exactly help the way his heart swells when she looks at him, not a hint of disdain on her face, god she’s a special woman.

“My desire not to kill you has nothing to do with a love of bacon,” she kids back. “And I’m close. I was able to locate a witch. The woman who wrote this spellbook, actually. She’s not only still alive, but she also doesn’t live too terribly far from here. _She_ can help.”

“Wonderful. So why aren’t you halfway to riding over to her, instead of here with your nose buried in a book?”

“Because I am asking quite a big favor of her and I need to know how to do it. I want to win her over, Robin. I’m doing some background work to see if there’s something I can do or say to make your case more… persuasive.”

“Ahhh,” Robin nods. “Looking for blackmail evidence.”

“No!” Regina laughs. “Just something to draw her in. I want to do a proper pitch.”

“I don’t think you need the background work. You’re quite convincing just being yourself,” he winks.

She makes him feel young again, oddly. Young and human, almost. In fact, he can’t even entirely wish away the years of misery living like this for years, because if he hadn’t been through them, he never would have met her.

And she’s the sort of friend you’d live a lifetime for.

.::.

spellbook

Robin is changing.

In more ways than one, actually.

She’s not going to tell him, but that’s what she’s looking up in Maleficent’s spellbook. Those shocking white hairs she cut short around his scalp are growing back as a peppery blend of brown and grey, but there are also some hair buds sprouting further up his scalp. How can he regrow hair? And hair with color to it?

His lavender eyes look bluer these days. His face is less wrinkled, oddly.

That snout is the same as ever, his hands, always hidden in his makeshift gloves, still look like hooves. But his skin looks more beige than pink, and she’s not sure how or why these things are happening, but she has a theory she’d like to look at and discuss with Maleficent.

And she could easily do the research at home, but she quite prefers to work with Robin around. She’s not entirely sure _why,_ but his company is more welcome than anyone else these days. She has connected with him on some level. He’s actually made her realize that she’s been lonely for years.

It’s the price of her freedom from social conventions. Few friendships. She trained herself to believe she didn’t mind, but she’s really been ignoring that gnawing, empty ache in her chest.

Robin has been good for her.

Sure, people would find her crazy for wanting to spend so much time with a monster, but people already find her crazy for not wanting a marriage, for shooting down many of the wealthier elites that had once fought for her hand.

In fact, all that nonsense might have brought her more judgment than associating with a deformed man ever would.

She does not care what people think anyway. She doesn’t regret her choices, the empty loneliness is better than being in a trapped marriage with someone she will never love.

She’s going to be sad when this ends. She’s sure when he is healed he will want to leave and start over somewhere else.

He won’t have time for her. No man does. She’s not marrying material, hell, she’s barely fit to take out in public. She won’t change, but she wishes the world would just a bit.


	5. Chapter 5

Knocking on the door of a witch is a rather intimidating activity.

For others perhaps it would be scary, but for her, it’s much more __exciting.__

She doesn’t fear witches, she respects them. They have great power, they are clever. They are strong and independent and care more about their craft than fitting into society.

Her mother was (perhaps is, she’s not sure) caustic and evil, used her magic for evil, and that __should__ have sworn her off the whole thing for life.

But, oddly, it didn’t make Regina hate all magic. Perhaps because she’s seen the good in it. She watched as a young witch took pity on her father, as she prepared some magical elixir that healed him after a terrible infection. Her mother was gone by then, had abandoned them in search of a cure or a boost to her weakening power.

So Regina was left to search for a cure to her father’s ailments and found one in a potions expert who admitted she was a witch. With no other options and time running out, Regina reluctantly agreed to let her treat her dying father.

He lived. She paid a price — a fair one the witch earned her of — and it was worth the life of her father without a doubt.

“It would have been more had I done it completely with magic,” the witch had explained. “But it’s not just magic. It’s healing herbs and other helpful ingredients.”

That witch left the town years ago without so much as giving Regina her name, but she left an impression to last a lifetime.

Regina has been fascinated by the idea of blending medicinal cures with magic ever since.

Maleficent’s spellbook is full of magical potions and elixirs, natural ingredients enhanced with a charm. She is brilliant, a true genius and artist, the perfect idol.

So yes, Regina has a lot of nerves as she stands at the door of the old estate known to be hers. It’s rather isolated, quite a trek in the forest to reach with no road the speak of — there was one once, she supposes, but it's been overgrown with tangled weeds and other foliage.

The door looks rusted and unused, ivy grows over it in a peculiar way. One would think no one has lived here for some time.

But Regina knows better. She’s heard of it for years, of course, growing up here. Legends of the beautiful witch living in a remote castle, cursing all who encroach on her land. But she also researched it, looked into town records and old papers. There are traces of her, accounts of her visiting town and trading antiques at the marketplace.

She heard Maleficent had become quite reserved since magic dried up, but she can’t imagine she was a witch who lost her abilities entirely.

She is too powerful.

On the third knock, Regina finally hears a voice, somewhere between a whisper and a whine ask “Who are you and what __do__ you want?”

“My name is Regina... Mills,” She states as confidently as she can. “I’m seeking your help on a matter that directly relates to a subject of your expertise.”

“What is that?” the voice asks.

The door creaks open, but no one is there to greet her.

She walks through cautiously. “Magic,” Regina answers. “Or magical elixirs, perhaps?”

There’s a low fire across a long, empty hallway Regina imagines was one furnished and decorated lavishly. So perhaps the stories of Maleficent selling her belongings are true.

The voice is coming from that fire though she still can’t see where Maleficent is. She hears a cackle, a bitter, dry laugh, and then, “My dear, you should know that there is no real magic in this land anymore. Not the kind that could do any amount of good, that is.”

“You still have magic,” Regina says, venturing towards the back of an old, threadbare loveseat.

“How do you know that?” Maleficent asks, “Perhaps it’s dead within me like it is for so many of us once great artists of the field.”

“You opened the door with magic,” Regina notes.

That laugh comes back, this time even louder, just as Regina walks past the loveseat and turns to face her companion.

Maleficent is beautiful. Beautiful, but disheveled. Her dress is a dull shade of mauve, it could be pretty, but the corset is not drawn up tight, it hangs on her loosely. A robe is over it, a darker, reddish mulberry. Her legs are bent and hanging off the edge of the loveseat, her hands tightly clasped around a cup made of crystal.

Her hair is still a shocking blonde, it is wild, natural curls frizzing around her lovely face.

Her eyes are telling, the way they roll and do not focus.

She’s not quite there, somehow. Tired, sick… or maybe it’s too much wine or whiskey.

“If you need an unlocked door opened, I suppose I can help you out,” she mutters. “I’ll even throw in closing it if you want.”

“I need your help. To save a man’s life.” Regina tells her, taking a seat in the chair opposite her. She pretends she is talking to her as an equal, not that she’s meeting with a fallen idol. She tells herself not to back down not to leave just because the witch is not quite what she had hoped.

Maleficent rolls her eyes at her. “Little one, magic has dried up on this earth years ago, and while the most powerful might have a trick or two, we certainly can no longer save lives.”

Regina has been prepared for this argument “You can save him,” she argues. “I know you can. He has—”

“I can’t save a wounded toad,” Maleficent laughs. “I’m so sorry, do you want a drink?”

She holds up a decanter filled with a light brown liquid. “The whiskey is all watered down, but I did slip a drop of an old potion into it. A drop of a sleeping spell I made years back. Always goes down smooth.”

“I don’t need any of that. And it seems you’ve had more than enough,” Regina scoffs, angry that this woman she admired has been reduced to no better than the town drunk. “And I believe you can help me even with the meager magic in this works. This isn’t just helping close a wound or curing an illness. This man has been cursed. With strong magic. A century-old curse.”

Maleficent's eyes go wide, the thinnest of smiles spreads across her face before she school’s her features back into disinterest.

“How do you know it is magic of a century-old?” she asks.

“He was cursed to live this way for one hundred years. It’s been ninety-seven. He told me himself.” Regina scowls back at her, waiting for the next excuse.

“He could have lied,” she says breathlessly, “what is the curse?”

“He was transformed from a man into a… well, he has features of a pig.”

Maleficent laughs. “You know what a curse does, don’t you? It traps magic, like the ancient creatures in tar pits, like insects in amber.”

“I know all about that,” Regina grumbles. “Why do you think I’m here? I know there is a way to release that magic, to absorb it. I’ve read about it. In __your__ book. You can use that trapped magic to reverse the curse. And take what’s left of the magic you can take for yourself.”

“I __could__ ,” Maleficent nods. “But the amount of magic to give a man some pig ears and a little tail—-“

“It’s actually a snout and hooves,” Regina corrects. Then she winces. “Actually, there may be a tail, we’ve not discussed it.”

“Even if I could transform him, whatever magic is left is not enough to cut through whatever is in the air these days,” Maleficent sighs. “A simple curse, I bet it breaks upon the finding of true love. I’d be wasting my time without any reward.”

“The curse is more complicated,” Regina argues, trying to appeal to Maleficent's sense of curiosity if nothing else. “First, it’s given him the ability to live a hundred years—“

“Boring,” Maleficent sigh.

“And second, he’s been physically aging in reverse lately. And some of his features are becoming more human.”

Now __that__ sparks interest in her. Maleficent raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“His wrinkles are fading since I let him. His eyes have become a more human color. Hair is growing on his head. He told me that over time his hands became more like fingers, and his body became a bit more human in shape, but he doesn’t know why.”

“What did this witch tell him? Does he remember the exact words?”

“He doesn’t. He says something about cursing his insides to match his outsides”

Maleficent's eyes widen once again, and she finally puts down that cup of spiked whiskey.

“What did he do?” she asks slyly. “What would make a witch enact that curse. It’s personal. It’s not easy.”

“He made false promises to a woman he bedded,” Regina explains. “After he bedded her, to be clear. So he could leave without confrontation.”

“A cowardly little pig,” Maleficent snorts. “I think I know of the witch who did this. Clever, very clever. And oh, she loved to punish men who scorned women, especially after her lover left her the way he did. She most likely trapped this victim, knowing he would fail her morally. She was a great witch, Morgana was, but sadly she could not maintain her immortality in this new climate. Died of a human disease not long ago.”

Regina nods.

“I will soon die,” Maleficent murmurs.

“You look young,” Regina argues, “Though I can’t say you look healthy. I suspect that with a proper diet and less drink—“

“I don’t wish to live much longer and I certainly don’t need a child to tell me to eat my vegetables,” Maleficent sneers. “Now what you are offering me — if true — is a chance to capture some powerful magic in a land where it is a scarcity. Why me? Why not your mother?”

“You know my mother?” Regina hadn’t expected Cora to be well known and certainly not well known enough to where her daughter would be recognizable to anyone.

“Of course. She’s quite a powerful witch and starving for power if I remember her correctly. She would welcome the opportunity to drink on this charm’s magic.”

“She left me and my father when I was a child,” Regina says plainly. “I wouldn’t even know where to find her. And I wouldn’t trust her intentions, anyway. She did not use magic for good.”

“No,” Maleficent sighs, looking at her with a bit of pity, as if she knows what she suffered at the hands of her mother “She did not.”

“There was another witch who helped my father not long ago when magic had already become sparse. She used medicinal herbs blended with magic to cure his ailment. I don’t know where she went. But I believe she used your book.”

“Yes, my method of blending natural cures with magical ones, particularly useful in these days,” Maleficent nods. “So you have sought me out because you believe my magic will still work in this world.”

“Yes,” Regina nods. “And because your book has magical __cures__ in it, not just curses and destruction. You want to help people, too.”

“A slight few,” Maleficent admits. “But not every man is worth saving. And undoing a good witch’s hard work against a man who lies to women isn’t exactly my standard practice.”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think he was a good man deserving of it,” Regina says as she stands to make her impassioned case. “I was caught by three men in the forest. They would have robbed me and left me for dead, not to mention to do worse. This man fought them off. He saved my life when I was but a stranger to him.”

“Oh,” Maleficent muses. “Admirable, but one act of good does not a good person make. Now I can help you gain vengeance on those three men if you wish.”

“No, I wish you to help Robin,” Regina sighs, frustrated because the woman won’t __listen.__

“Robin is it?” Maleficent asks, her eyes narrowing. “You aren’t just doing this to pay this man back for saving your life, are you?”

“I’m doing it because he deserves his life saved. Because he’s worthy of it and a good man.”

“Do you love him?” Maleficent asks bluntly.

Regina's cheeks heat, she feels so belittled at this moment, to reduce her sense of justice to romantic __feelings,__ it…

“I told you he’s a man well over a hundred who has features of a pig, did I not? There is nothing romantic between us.”

“I didn’t say _ _romantic love__ ,” Maleficent smiles bigger. “I said ‘ _ _love’__. Do you love him?”

“I don’t… no,” Regina says, quite sure she can’t, still insulted at the implication that she must have those feelings. “I’m very fond of him. We have a deep friendship. And I care about him. But no, we are not in love..”

“Mmm,” Maleficent says, thoroughly unconvinced. “You’ve made your case for this Robin as best you could. I don’t think there’s anything more to discuss. Let me think this over. If I decide it’s worthy of my time, I’ll seek you out. If not, there are plenty of other witches in the world.”

She waves Regina away.

And Regina can read her well enough to know there’s nothing more she can say.

Regina also knows there’s hardly a chance she will help Robin. In fact, She doubts Maleficent will ever leave this room. She’s far too comfortable in her self pity, far too satisfied with her drink.

“Very well, then.” Regina, she grabs the decanter of liquor from her, and in an angry and desperate move, hurls it into the fire.

Glass shatters and whiskey smokes, Regina waits for a magical attack, a shriek, banishment from her house and a promise to never help her.

Instead Maleficent looks more amused.

“I admired you. I studied your book for __years__. I’ve known a or of witches, I grew up with one. __You__ were what I aspired to be. And now you’re just wasting away, letting all that talent and fire burn to nothing.” Regina spits out the words. “I’m sorry I ever came here.”

She stalks towards a map framed on the far side of the wall and uses her pocket knife to slice at where Robin’s cave happens to be.

“There’s where the man is, should you ever have enough clarity to see straight and think again. And if not, have fun rotting in here alone. No one will remember your greatness. You will just be a sad old lonely woman. If that is your wish, so be it.”

Regina nearly runs out of the castle before Maleficent can gather the strength to kill her.

Though if she tried, Regina would almost be pleased.

.::.

“Stop moping,” Robin directs. “You’ll find another witch to idolize.”

“I’m not __moping__ ,” Regina mutters under her breath. “I’m mourning. Mourning the death of the person Maleficent could have been.”

“Eh, the loss of magic probably drives some witches crazy. Their magic was like my good looks and charm. Something you grow so accustomed to using you can barely live without it when it’s stripped from you.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Regina rolls her eyes playfully. She’s actually glad he’s been more confident and jovial these past few days, that he’s gotten back some of that spark. “I think you are exaggerating those looks and that charm of yours. It certainly wasn’t like a magical power.”

“Beauty has great power,” he smiles back. “But I don’t have to tell you that, do I?”

She feels herself blush before she can stop it from happening, but does her best to look unaffected as she asks in a dulled tone, “well if that is some of that infamous charm, I __know__ it wasn’t a magical power.”

“Perhaps I’m rusty,” he shrugs. “But there was a time when I had to be careful, lest a woman become enraptured and fall in love with me.”

Regina snorts. “It’s a pity I don’t know what you used to look like so I can cut you down to size on that aspect, too.”

“Is that so?” Robin asks. “You know, when my father died, I took a few things from his estate. It wasn’t stealing; they technically belonged to me. So I took a few things… well, let me get one. Stay here.”

He leaves her on the fallen log she’s now considered “her” spot in his outdoor camping grounds, watching as he enters his cave.

When he comes back, he’s carrying what appears to be a large painting in an ornate frame. It’s back is to her, but she can guess what it is.

“Your vanity truly knows no bounds,” Regina snorts. Robin laughs a bit at himself, too. “You actually stole a portrait of yourself?”

“I took all the portraits. The frames are worth the money, should I need it. A few of my family, to remember them. But yes, also this.”

He turns the frame around. It’s a photo of a young man holding a sword upside down, almost like a cane, pointed side embedded in a rock, one leg hiked upon it. He is dressed in leather britches and a white tunic, not an elaborate uniform or velvet cloth like other men of his prestige and class.

His muscles are painted into the portrait, rippling arms and legs, toned stomach, and then that chiseled jawline, a perfect nose, and those eyes, those eyes that are unmistakably his, captured perfectly in the portrait.

He is good looking.

Ok, that is an understatement.

He is one of the most attractive men she’s seen, in portrait form at least.

She can imagine how easy it was for him to get women to spread their legs for him. Hell, she’s not entirely sure she’d be able to resist him herself, and she considers herself to be less superficial than most.

“Oh,” Regina’s voice is off, her mouth is dry, she’s not sure how obvious it is that the portrait has surprised her, but she tries to act bored and unimpressed with it, if that’s possible. “If only I knew what you looked like without the flattery and forgiveness of the artist’s stroke.”

Robin rolls his eyes. “Very funny. This was me, and it was quite accurate. Now, have I exaggerated my good looks?”

“Yes,” she says, clearing her throat and looking away. “I’m afraid I am __quite__ unimpressed. Even at a flattering portrait.”

“Alright,” Robin laughs, “I suppose I can’t be everyone’s type.”

“Mmm, well, from the stories plenty of women were interested in you back in the day so I’m the outlier. And you clearly enjoyed your looks enough to get your portrait done in that ridiculous pose.”

Robin grins. “My father handled the portraits, scheduling when to get them done, at least. The artist would decide on a pose. My only real contribution was the attire. I was unconventional in that, for my time at least.”

“I do like that,” Regina smiles. “Simple, not the decadent frills that look so uncomfortable and silly on a man. The shirt and trousers suit you.”

Robin looks proud, perhaps he is since she’s finally paid him one compliment on the matter. “You should get your portrait done, you know, if you haven’t yet, I mean. I bet you’d pick the perfect outfit for yourself.”

“I had my portrait drawn at eight, twelve and again at sixteen,” Regina responds, “My mother wanted them to be done regularly, but after she left it seemed unnecessary to keep up with. It’s too expensive for us.”

“I have money,” Robin says, “If I have you the money would you give me a portrait for me to keep?”

She feels her cheeks growing hot yet __again.__ This is embarrassing. “What would you possibly do with a picture of me?”

“Look at it when you are gone. When you find someone else to occupy your time—“

“Listen to me. I’m not going __anywhere,”__ Regina tells him sternly. “Stop trying to get rid of me. You’re stuck with me.”

“You deserve more out of life,” he argues. “You are still young, there has to be someone deserving…” He seems to be struggling with words and swipes a hand over his head, far back until it reaches the top of his scalp.

And that is an area of his body he hasn’t touched lately, she’s noticed.

His expression goes from embarrassed to puzzled in an instant. He brushes his hand over his hair again, looking at her with confusion, perhaps a bit of betrayal.

He can feel the hair starting to regrow, it seems.

“I didn’t want to say anything,” Regina says softly. “I didn’t know what it means. But it seems you’re getting your hair back. And from what I can see, it’s not all coming in white. There’s a bit of brown.”

“You should have told me,” Robin mutters. “What else has changed?”

“Your skin feels different, haven’t you noticed? It’s softer. It looks a bit less pink these days, too. And your eyes are this impossible shade of blue,” Regina huffs.

“They were red once. Then lavender,” he notes.

“And now, the same shade of blue as that portrait,” she mentions. “Robin, I don’t know what it means. I hoped Maleficent did. I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but I think it’s a good thing.”

“Perhaps it is,” Robin smiles. “Still, if you can’t help me, if it’s a lost cause, I beg you to leave me far before this is over. I don’t want you to watch me die.”

“I won’t watch you die and I won’t leave you, either,” Regina resolves. "And there’s no one I’d rather spend time with, so you can stop trying to push me away.”

“You deserve much better,” he says sadly. “I joke, I kid around, but you do, Regina. I saw the way you spoke about your neighbor's new child last week.”

Regina tenses up. It’s a sore subject, children.

“You love children. And deserve one of your own. Moreover, a child deserves to have you as their mother.”

“I…” Regina sighs. “I may want children but I don’t want a husband. So that is not going to happen.”

“There’s a man out there for you,” Robin winks. “I know it.”

“Somewhere, in a remote village is a man who hasn’t heard he’s to treat women as objects to manipulate and control,” Regina rolls her eyes. “I’ll seek him out one day. But not today.”

Robin seems to take that as an answer. He nods, but his expression still seems… off somehow.

“I like being with you,” she tells him honestly. “And don’t think I have given up on breaking this spell. Because I haven’t.”

“I feel selfish,” he whispers. “Allowing you to do this. And wanting you to stay.”

“You’re not selfish,” she says sternly. “And I like solving puzzles, and you, Robin, are a puzzle.”

“Is he now?”

Regina knows the voice before she spots her coming into the clearing of the forest. Maleficent.

For a second, she’s unsure whether the woman is here to help or kill her.

Her hair is in pristine, golden curls, her skin clear and a fresh, dark purple and black dress clings to every curve. She cares with her that glowing staff, she is beautiful and fearless and everything Regina had hoped.

“Now, are you going to introduce me and allow me to examine the cursed victim, or am I to impose myself with no introduction?”

Regina only smiles, both relieved and excited for what’s to come.


	6. Chapter 6

After an hour of inspecting and questioning Robin, Maleficent has fully come alive.

She’s so different than the wispy drunk Regina left. She’s smart and observant, asks only the best questions, muses over his body, feels the magic there, and Regina can already pick out the telltale smile that pops on her face when she figures something new out.

But she hasn’t shared her conclusions yet. She just keeps asking Robin questions.

“When you left your father’s estate is when you first noticed a change?” she asks.

“Yes… I suppose.”

“You started doing things on your own then. Did you find yourself changing your views on things?”

“I remember regretting many of my actions, and appreciating the things my servants did for me like any privileged man would were he left without.”

“And then the changes stopped until recently?”

“I didn’t even realize I had changed until Regina said so — so perhaps I have been changing for a while and not noticing.”

“Did you _really_ not notice?” Maleficent asks as if she is exhausted with him.

“Things felt different, I'll admit. But it… seemed too good to be true, I suppose.”

“Think. Have you ever felt a change like that before?” Maleficent asks.

“No,” Robin admits. “Not in nearly a century.”

“And have you ever loved anyone besides Regina in those ninety-odd years?” Maleficent asks passively as if it were some well-known fact he had already spoken about.

“No— what? I… I never said I love her.”

He looks terrified at Regina, who is too humiliated by Maleficent’s question to both looking unaffected by the question.

“Maleficent!” she hisses. “Be serious.”

“I am. He loves you. It’s clear as day.”

Robin‘s face reddens and he speaks quickly and defensively, “I would never… even imagine a world where we—”

“Yes, yes, it’s all very selfless,” Maleficent says in a bored tone. “You know it can’t happen, but you love her still. And perhaps it’s not romantic yet, but it’s getting there. You’re falling in love with her, bit by bit.”

“I wouldn’t let myself,” Robin defends. “I would fight it, I would—”

“You can’t stop it. Love is strong and does not bend to the will of a man,” Maleficent scoffs.

“She loves you, too. I can feel it. It radiates off her.”

“I don’t think of him that way!” Regina protests. Maleficent only raises an eyebrow.

“You don’t need physical attraction to have love, Regina. Your souls recognize something in one another, it’s spiritual, it doesn’t pay attention to age or mechanics and it certainly doesn’t need lust to come about. Although…” She turns and tilts her head, looking at Robin, and he looks nothing but ashamed.

“I can break the curse,” Maleficent says, upbeat and smiling. “But sadly, he’s still too old.”

“He is reverse aging, isn’t he?”

“His body, in some ways,” Maleficent answers. “But there’s evidence of his true age hidden under the surface. If I changed him back he’d turn to an old man, and I can’t undo that. It’s a clever curse. It’s… beautiful, actually. It feels like Morgana’s magic, fully immersive, fresh and strong. But it has twists and turns to it. She spent a long time crafting this. I suspect there are other men living with other animal features. Donkey seems obvious. Rat, I can see that one as well. An animal farm of wayward men.”

“Alright,” Robin groans. “So there’s no cure?”

“I didn’t say that,” Maleficent corrects. “She cursed you to show your true form based on your inner thoughts, your moral center. Change that, and the curse will break.”

“How do I do that? Change my moral center, that is.”

“Falling in love does it easiest,” Maleficent murmurs. “That, plus feeling love returned tends to change a person’s whole world. It’s what she told you would break the curse, but it’s not all that will. You need to completely change your piggish views on everything. And truly change them, sincerely. Not suppress your urges and say something you don’t mean just to get your old nose back. You have to change for the right reasons. And now that I’ve told you this, it will be harder to change.”

“She’s already been helping me with that,” Robin informs her, motioning to Regina. “On how to treat women, on what they go through and feel.”

“And your perspective on the poor must change, the disabled, other things, I suspect. You need to start thinking about why she made you into a pig. A pig rolls around in the mud but thinks he is clean and everyone else is dirty. It’s a smart animal, but often thinks it’s better than the other livestock. Pigs are lazy and overindulgent. You’ve changed many of these things, but it seems not all of them.”

“So he has to change his bad beliefs and then he will turn back to himself?” Regina asks.

“I cannot tell. It appears you need true love to completely be free of the pig features, some of them are threaded through the curse quite skillfully. But I can undo those once the age part of the curse is entirely undone. And that needs to be undone by a change in attitude.”

Maleficent nods her head and smiles. “Morgana assured herself you wouldn’t escape your fate purely by falling in love with a blind woman, or someone who agreed with you in your ugly beliefs. Isn’t that interesting?”

“Quite,” Robin sighs. “What can I do, if anything? Regina’s already challenging some of my deeply held beliefs on women and society. I already know what a cad I was back then, I know how I hurt those women, and I regret it. What more can I—”

“There’s still more to fix, or the curse wouldn’t still cling to the aging part,” Maleficent shrugs. “Take a deep look at yourself. Is there something you are ashamed of? Something you’ve been hiding?”

She watches as Robin’s Adam’s apple bobs, his expression shifts into guilt.

“Work on it,” Maleficent advises. “If you have done everything and still haven’t transformed back, let me know. I can give you your old physical appearance. I just can’t reverse the aging of your body parts and your blood. And I want you to live for a long time.” She looks over at Regina, winking at her. “ _She_ deserves it.”

“I don’t see why his life relates to what I deserve!” Regina argues, but Mal only laughs.

“If you think you are able to hide your feelings, I assure you that you are failing,” Maleficent stands up and brushes bits of leaves from her dress. “You lit a fire under me, little one. You helped remind me that there is still a life worth living, still hope for someone like me to find a way to exist, to change and fit into this new world. I owe you a favor. So I will make sure he comes out of this curse alive. For you.”

Regina doesn’t know what to say, and she doesn’t have any time to say it.

Maleficent evaporates into thin air after that.

She didn’t know witches could transport like that anymore. It takes so much power, after all. She’s temporarily awestruck, lost in the moment.

.::.

Regina is standing there, beautiful, admiring the residual purple smoke Maleficent left in the wake of her transportation.

She is so beautiful. He hates to interrupt the moment she’s having, certainly a deserved feeling. She’s given Maleficent a new lease on life, inspired her to be great and powerful again.

There’s really nothing she can’t do.

“Well, I must hand it to you, you certainly picked the right witch to inspire,” Robin winks.

She turns to him and offers that cute little smile and says with an air of confidence, “Did you doubt me?”

Robin shakes his head, his expression equally awestruck, though it appears his look of adoration is for her instead of Maleficent. “I think when it comes to you I’ve learned to expect the impossible.”

Regina laughs and takes a seat on the fallen log. “Maybe that will be my new slogan for my potions. ‘Expect the impossible’. Though they aren’t as perfect as they _could_ be. Nothing is a miracle. Nothing is like what Maleficent can do.”

“Give yourself time. You will be curing the world of all ailments by the time you are thirty.”

Regina rolls her eyes, but Robin just leans back on the forest ground against that log and looks up at her. “I wouldn’t ever bet against you. You should take my advice. I was doomed a hundred years ago, and here I am with a second chance.”

“We still have to figure out what caveman style beliefs are hidden in your head before we start celebrating,” Regina tells him. “Or what awful secret you’ve been hiding.”

He winces. He knows what selfish thing he has been keeping from her, and he is loathe to share it. “I know, and listen, I’m fairly certain I know what it is, and I’m afraid changing it isn’t so easy. So I don’t want you to get upset, you tried, and honestly, these past few weeks have been—”

“Shut up. Tell me what it is. We will fix it.”

Regina looks both angry and determined and he knows better than to argue with her when she is like this.

He bites his lip, feeling a sense of dread coming. “It will make you uncomfortable.”

“Please, I’m not some wilting flower who can’t take a past confession of crimes. You forget who my mother is. Now, did you rape a woman? Enslave her? Kidnap her and lock her in a castle?”

“God, no,” Robin sighs, shocked she’d even consider that. “It... it’s my _feelings_ toward a woman.”

Regina furrows her brow. “Feelings toward servants? Or a whore? Or—”

“Toward _you,”_ he interrupts. “My feelings toward _you.”_

He watches the expression of her face fall from confused to pained and he can’t tell if she understands or has the completely wrong idea.

“Is every compliment a false one?” she asks meekly. “I thought you… respected me, that you—”

“I do!” he says quickly, and yes, she does have the wrong idea indeed. “I think very much of you. Far more than I should.”

He braces himself, but it’s worlds better now, now that she understands his true feelings than think he secretly demeans her or hates her.

“I know what I deserve in this world. I know what I am, what I can offer — and it’s nothing. I know all this.”

“Okay…” Regina says, clearly uncertain where this is leading, “What does your obvious self-depreciation have to do with me?”

He focuses on the ground. “This is humiliating, and I want you to promise you’ll ignore it, that you won’t stop seeing me or—”

“I promise. I’m not going anywhere,” Regina assures. “Tell me.”

“I… somehow... over the past few weeks I _have_ fallen in love with you,” he admits. He can’t bear to look up at her, so he gives himself a moment to stare at the dirt before explaining, “I’m so sorry, I tried to keep my thoughts rational, but my heart runs away with things. It is selfish to love you, horribly selfish, and inappropriate, you are—”

“Oh gods on high,” Regina interrupts sounding completely fed up with him. “Leave it to you to confess something so beautiful and then completely ruin it by making it into some crime!”

He’s got the strength to look up at her, and he sees how hurt she looks, how her tear-stained cheeks glitter sadly in the fading sunlight.

Gods, he’s really done it.

“It’s not a beautiful confession. I’m an old cursed man, and you are a beautiful woman, and I have no right to feel this way. It’s selfish. It’s… you are just trying to help, and I just made it into something I shouldn’t, I—”

“There’s nothing wrong with love,” Regina nearly yells at him. “Stop painting it so negatively. Your love for me isn’t dirty or wrong and it’s certainly not why you’re still cursed.”

“But—”

“ _No,”_

“An old man shouldn’t feel things like this,” he mutters.

“Says who?” Regina asks softly. She slides off the log to sit next to him, and he freezes, moving away from her attempt to touch or console.

“Besides, you’re not really old.”

“I am in years, even if I look younger. And I’m still… I know how I look. Even if I were young, even thinking of you and wanting your companionship and more is selfish. A man should know his place.”

“That’s what my mother said, you know,” she sighs, scooting next to him. “I fell in love with someone who was very much supposed to know his place was far below me. He was a stable boy, one of our servants. But he fell for me too, and we didn’t care what people said, what I supposedly deserved. We just loved one another.”

“What happened?” Robin asks, “to the man you loved, I mean. You’ve never shared that with me before.”

“Mother killed him,” Regina sighs, as if it were so simple, so obvious. She smiles sadly. “She knew we loved one another far too deeply and nothing short of death could end it. She did it for me, she said. So I wouldn’t ruin my life and slum it with some servant. She spared me from years of happiness and love in her own twisted belief that there was something better out there for me.”

“I’m sorry,” Robin pats her on the back. “That must have been a horrible thing to live through. Love shouldn’t be ripped from someone like that.”

“It was miserable. It’s the reason I decided not to marry. The reason I wasn’t too upset when my mother left us. I didn’t want to live under her expectations. Or society’s. I knew loving him wasn't proper, but I also knew I couldn’t stop. Even when I had the fear it might put his life in danger… I couldn’t stop it. Neither could he.”

“This isn’t just about falling in love outside of social status,” Robin tells her because he knows what she’s going for here, and she’s wrong. He’s no young stable boy loving a woman out of his status. He’s a mutant gazing up at the stars and daring to try to pull one down

to the sewers with him.

“I care for you too, you know,” Regina says, her voice cracking slightly. “I’m not here all the time because it’s necessary for my work. I could do my research and reading elsewhere. I prefer to be with you over anyone else.”

“If you just got to know someone—”

“You still think I need a man,” Regina sighs. “If you were penniless but looked like you did before the curse, would you be so eagerly trying to get me into some other man’s arms?”

“I…”

That’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s still all about his looks and charm. He is so hyper-focused on those two things because it’s been such a big part of his life.

“If I looked like I once did everything would be different,” he admits. “Well, if I had my estate as well, of course.”

“Your looks don’t bother me,” Regina reiterates. “And you should look into a mirror because you look much better than you did even a few weeks ago. And I could give a damn about wealth.”

Robin wrinkles his snout, a reminder that regardless of what she may say, he’s still severely deformed. “My looks bother everyone else. Including me.”

“Maybe the problem is you placed too much importance on your looks and wealth,” Regina murmurs. “You probably still look at a person’s value by that, don’t you?”

“I don’t think so,” Robin furrows his brow and reexamines the question a bit more.

“My mother took much of my father’s fortune with her when she left. We don’t have much left. My potions allow us to keep the estate,” Regina explains. “We kept the stable, at my insistence. And a few hired people just to run the estate. You know I cook for myself. I might have the social standing, but we aren’t wealthy, not anymore. Does that change your opinion of me?”

“Of course not,” Robin scoffs, “How I feel about you has nothing to do with that.”

“So why should it matter to me?” Regina challenges. “It never has mattered before. If I were a servant girl would you still be pushing me away?”

“Yes, because you are smart, witty, you’re bold and fierce—”

“So why can’t you embrace the positive qualities you have now without looks and wealth?”

Robin chuckles. “Milady, I don’t have any of those.”

“You do, or I wouldn’t be here,” Regina smiles. “I can tell you, but you won’t believe it. You’ll have to truly search your soul and embrace what you now are inside, I think.”

“And what am I?” Robin asks.

“A brave man. A protective one, but in a good way. You worry about people. You care. You’re gentle, ungodly kind. You have lived for over a hundred years and still, want to learn new things. You’re sentimental, it’s sweet, the way you try to protect the memories we have. You are intelligent as well— exceedingly so. You’ve managed to be almost entirely self-sufficient out here on your own, how many wealthy men would have lasted without servants to tie their shoes and dress them? Yet you can hunt and collect your own food, you can cook it, too. That shows a lot of drive and a damn fine work ethic.”

“It didn’t come easily,” Robin sighs. “I’m sure I would have died without the curse keeping me alive for those first few years.”

“It doesn’t matter. You learned. You grew. You are this person now. Embrace it.”

Robin struggles with this, seeing the pride in his abilities to survive, really he grew in an environment where these skills were considered far beneath him, work not fit for peasants. This was something he’s done out of necessity, for even though he cannot die, he could experience the pain of hunger and disease.

“Now is there anything else, any terrible thing you’ve done that you haven’t shared or properly learned from?” Regina asks. “Any story about women that you want to share?”

Robin laughs. “Regina, I may not look like a man but I still know how to act like a gentleman. And as much as we’ve shared, the dirty specifics of my past are quite unfit for your ears.”

He catches her eyes, her expression growing meek. “Don’t treat me as if I’m some blushing virgin.”

“Well....” Robin winks at her. She might not be _blushing_ , but as an unmarried woman in her class, she is obviously…

He watches her eyebrow raise, and it clicks. _Oh_.

“You and Daniel—?”

“And others, after he died,” she admits, clearing her throat nervously. “Mother… she made it so there was no evidence of what we had done, you know, after his death. She _fixed_ it, she said. I didn’t want to be fixed. And magic started to dry up, and she became so self-absorbed so…” Regina shrugs. “I just wanted to feel something, because I knew it would never be love but maybe I could feel close, I could feel _wanted._ It was only supposed to be one time with one person but it ended up being more, I was so numb for so long and I tried…” she swallows, her eyes are glistening. He wants to hold her, but he’s not sure she would let him. “I don’t want to be married, Robin. Which is fortunate few men would marry me. Even though I tried to be discreet for father’s sake, went to different towns, disguised myself a bit… but there are still rumors of my indiscretions. And I work for a living on top of it, and I am the daughter of a witch. And far too opinionated. I don’t want to be married, Robin, which is wonderful news, because few of any men would ever willingly marry me.”

There’s silence as he thinks of what to say. Would telling her that he, a pathetic excuse for a man, would be over the moon to marry her? Or would that just make it worse, knowing that perhaps the only suitors she has are mutants like him.

“I should have told you sooner,” she mutters. “I don’t care what people say or think but it’s just been nice being here and _not_ be known for that.”

“It doesn’t change anything,” he says, finding his voice. “And you owe me nothing, by the way. No duty to tell me any of this.”

“It changes a lot.” Regina’s lip quivers, her eyes are now red and wet, and he could almost cry at the sight of her. “You never would have fallen in love with me if—”

Oh, she’s wrong on that.

“If I knew? Of course, I would. Regina, of the many horrible things I was, I wasn’t much of a hypocrite and far from judging a woman for sexual exploits.” He can’t bear to see her like this, so he seeks to lighten the mood while still being truthful. “Besides, back before the curse, I can tell you my preference for women was definitely _not_ virgins. In fact, I'm quite sure I’ve never been with one and from what I had heard from my friends, I wasn’t missing anything magical or wonderful by taking someone’s maidenhead.”

Regina snorts, “Of course you’d have that preference for sexual conquests—”

“Not conquests. Companions. I was a cad but this was never about a battle to win. I enjoyed it, the entire thing. I didn’t do it for anything except the experience.”

“ _Companions,”_ Regina corrects, “But you’d never marry someone like me, not back then.”

“Not unless I learned a bit, perhaps,” Robin concedes. “I did always picture myself eventually settling down. But you never know. I always shirked conventions, I was never one to follow the rules of my own class and status. And I preferred the exciting women over the women who would be offered as a match for me. The biggest problem would be that big mouth and brain of yours,” he sighs in mock annoyance. “I wouldn’t much like a woman both smarter and more well-spoken than myself. Not back then, anyway. As you know, I thought of women much differently back then… and up until recent history. Up until knowing you, that is. So perhaps it would have worked out even if I knew you a hundred years ago. We would have fought like cats and dogs, argued and clashed, and I would have been absolutely mesmerized.”

Regina wipes at a tear as discreetly as possible, turning from him as if she can hide it from him, as if he hasn’t caught on to the fact she’s been holding them back for so long. He doesn’t react, only smiles sadly at her.

“I wouldn’t have given you the time of day back then,” she says, her voice more playful and strong. “I like you much better now.”

He laughs, shakes his head but decides not to argue with her. Of all the people who have ever lived, she might be the only person who enjoys Robin better looking like _this._

“I like you better like this too, you know,” Robin smiles. “I mean, you’re better for all the experiences you had. And if you hadn’t gone through them, I doubt you would have been able to see me the way you do. So I’m grateful for that, too.”

“Possibly,” she muses, scratching at her neck. “Okay, I have to get back to my father. And you have some introspection to do. I’ll be by tomorrow. Some books are on hold for me at the library that might help us, and I figure we could divide the workload and both take a few books to read.”

“Sounds lovely,” Robin smiles.

She wrinkles her nose that way as she always does before she leaves, smiling and hugging him so sweetly, and then he’s left alone again. He’s been alone for so many decades, but only recently has the pain of that solitude reappeared, has he longed for companionship, her companionship, specifically.

These thoughts usually drive him down a guilty, self-loathing path, but this time he tries to give himself a break as Regina directed him to do.

He tries to see it as progress, as a sign that he’s still got his humanity. He tries to think of the positives, of why his life is one worth saving.

And what he keeps coming back to is he can’t be all bad, not if Regina Mills cares for him.

He lies down in his bed with a renewed sense of hope, focusing on who he is as a person. He might not ever be a wealthy man again (unlikely at this point), and he’s not sure his looks will ever return. But there’s value in those who are kind, self-sufficient, those who can help the unfortunate, those who think of others over themselves.

And he supposed he has some of those qualities now, if he’s being entirely honest.

.::.

Regina waits until she’s both out of earshot and eyesight before she lets even one tear escape.

Not that he would see one tear fall as her back was turned to him, as she was riding away.

But one tear breaks the dam, and then it is a landslide, she is urging Rocinante to stop so she can have a moment to just lean against the large, overgrown tree she’s used as a marker for being halfway between the clearing and Robin’s cave.

She’s not even sure why she’s crying.

It’s probably because she actually _does_ love him. And that isn’t supposed to happen.

She’s not supposed to love again. That is a promise she made to herself after Daniel. Love doesn’t work for her and certainly doesn’t work for those who love her. They get hurt. She’s fairly certain her mother cursed her that way.

So why is this happening?

It’s also awful because she’s ruined any real chance at a future for them even if he changed back, even if this worked.

He is born and bred for high society, and she’s no doubt with the priceless art and china he’s pilfered from his own estate and his own wit and charm, Robin could fit right back into society in no time.

Unless he decides to be with her that is. Then he will be barely better off than he is now. He will be the man who is slumming it with the used woman, the half-witch, the rumored prostitute. His second chance to be part of society will be ripped from him. He will be an outcast again, and it’s unfair.

She should have warned him sooner. But how was she to know that these feelings would spring up in both of them?

She might love him, and he may love her, but they are not meant to be. And they are never _going_ to be.

She won’t do that to him.


	7. Chapter 7

Regina makes her way to Robin’s with a renewed sense of positivity. She slept on her feelings overnight and decided perhaps things aren’t as dire or worrisome as she had thought. She has a good amount of time with Robin left to figure things out, to work on solving the curse.

She gave up on the thought of a husband and family long ago. The instant Daniel died, in fact, when she realized what her mother was truly capable of doing, the lengths Cora will go to control the lives of those she sees as her property, those she deems part of her own. Of course, then her mother lost her magic and the world seemed almost safe again. But it was too late by then. Regina had already made her choice.

Falling in love with Robin reminded her of that and made her wish she could take certain things back, but really, in truth, she did what she had to, to protect herself and anyone else that she might love. She had no way of knowing what the future would hold. She had already resigned herself to a lonely existence. This kinship with Robin is more than she thought she’d ever have with anyone.

So she’s going to enjoy this while she has it. And perhaps over time, their feelings will change from love to a good, solid friendship. She likes researching with Robin — even if he hardly does any of the research himself. He makes it fun, both teases and praises her in the same breath, listens to all her theories and adds his own. And she has new books to read, will have new theories to talk to him about, and the entire day will be a lazy, simple one.

Except when she reaches the clearing by Robin’s cave, things don’t look so simple. Two pewter cups, a rolled blanket and a rucksack full of items are right outside the cave entrance. She worries someone might have found him, an explorer, someone seeking to make a name for himself by killing the freak of the forest.

“Robin?” she cries out. “Robin, are you—?”

But before she can finish her question, Robin steps out of the cave. For a second she isn’t sure it’s him. It looks like a bandit, the way the cloth covers his mouth and nose, the hood that drapes over his scalp and forehead. But it’s definitely Robin, the piercing blue eyes give it away.

“What is going on?” she asks, puzzled. “Did someone attack you? Did someone come here and bother you? Why are you wearing… all of that?”

“I went into town today,” Robin says cheerfully.

“In _daylight?”_ Regina asks incredulously. She’s spent so long trying to get Robin into town but he refuses, only making his way at dusk if a necessity arises, picking the day’s leftovers from merchants who are too busy packing up their wares to focus on his appearance too much.

“Well, I woke up to a bit of a surprise,” Robin explains. She can hear how pleased he is, the joyous tone in his voice.

He holds up his hand to show her, and she can barely stand up taking in the transformation.

Hands. Human ones. Fingers, five separate ones including a thumb.

He adds his second hand up. Identical.

“They are considerably less hideous looking after I cut the nails back,” he winces. “Still, the fingers are freakishly long and a bit crooked, but they are _human_ hands, Regina. And my feet… my feet are the same.”

“It’s working,” she breathes, completely taken back. “It’s all so fast, I didn’t think—is your nose—?”

“That’s very much still a snout,” Robin laughs. “But no one can tell with this thing on.”

“You look ridiculous,” Regina quips back, “what did the townspeople say when they saw you dressed like a bandit asking to trade?”

“Well the merchant who sold me this cheese refused to do business with me until I removed my hat and the cloth covering my face, but I told him I had suffered serious burns in a fire, and that he didn’t want to see how much of my nose and lips were missing. He bought it.”

“You’d rather be thought of as horrendously disfigured than a normal man with an abnormal nose?” Regina asks, raising an eyebrow.

Robin shakes his head, his eyes flicker from that happiness of seconds ago into something more forlorn and contemplative. He speaks softly, “My nose draws questions. And laughter. And… it always needs to be explained. I don’t need people asking if my mother laid with a pig again.”

Regina's heart squeezes tightly as she tries not to imagine the other things the cruel world has done and said to Robin over the years.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him. “I suppose in the last few decades people have failed to become more intelligent. Or sensitive.”

“It’s quite alright,” Robin waves off. “In any case, there were no questions about my hands for once. And that is why I was able to find all my favorite foods, plus…”

He opens the rucksack and shows her the wine inside, two bottles that look rather ornate and expensive. “It’s been a while since I’ve had the good stuff. And I figure this is cause for celebration, isn’t it?”

She tries not to cry, tries to look purely happy for him instead of selfishly upset (he’s changing so fast, he’s going to lose that pig shaped nose and then there will be no reason for them to be together, and she will lose him and she is _not ready)._

“Come on,” Robin motions toward the woods. “There’s this pretty little clearing on a hill, overlooks the stream, one of my favorite places in the woods and what’s best is nearly no one knows about it, so we won’t be interrupted and can—”

He stops the moment Regina pulls angrily at the cloth covering his face, and she assumes he sees the annoyance in her eyes.

He fastens it up over his nose again, looking confused as she groans and tries to pull it down again.

“I can barely hear you with your mouth all muffled like that, and you look like some sort of bandit organizing his next attack,” she chides. “Look, you can play the part of a burn victim to the villagers, but don’t hide from me. I like to see your face when I talk to you,” she grouses, grabbing some of the picnic items and heading in the direction he pointed. “Come on, show me where this secret sport of yours is.” She turns around to see Robin rather dumbfounded, frozen in place and slack-jawed.

She can see the hollow of his cheeks, the sharp jawline, the piercing blue eyes, the scruff of hair that clings to his cheeks that is is meticulously neat and must be intentional. The nose no longer stands out to her. It’s just something that’s a part of the man she’s finding herself more enamored by.

“Let's go,” Robin smiles, carrying the bag of treats and blanket himself. “Bring your books. I want to hear the latest theories.”

Regina does just that.

.::.

He’s so rarely out of the darkness with his hood drawn back and his full-face on display in the sunlight. It had taken a while and a bit of prodding by Regina, but he eventually did take off his cloak.

The sun is shining brightly, and she’s actually undressed the slightest bit. Nothing scandalous, of course, but it’s unseasonably warm for autumn, mostly thanks to the sun, so she’s taken off her clock and undone her corset so she’s just in her linen tunic and skirts.

She wishes she could do away with the ridiculous long sleeves that billow and interfere with all her activities (she spends so much needless time rolling them out before she prepares potions). But this is nice, right now. She feels comfortable and safe and is enjoying the warmth of the sun instead of being smothered by it like she had been this summer.

Robin looks like he’s enjoying the sun, too. She wonders how long it’s been since he came out into the sunlight without hiding himself from it and the world.

That’s a sad thought but Robin looks so happy, right now, eating fruit and cheese on china plates,

He has hair, actually, now. It looks like he shaves it close to the skin, but he’s no longer bald. the brown bits of hair just coming in making him look ruggedly handsome.

They haven’t gotten any work done. Instead, she’s been reading interesting and absurd parts of these books, sharing a giggle, waiting for Robin to deliver a quick and witty response to things like a spell used to treat excessive earwax or one to improve someone’s cooking skills.

She hates herself for blushing as, emboldened by the wine, she reads a spell for making a man more generous in the bedroom.

Robin laughs until he chokes at that one.

She hasn’t found anything particularly helpful, and perhaps that should bother her, but it doesn’t. She’s enjoying her time with him now. And she doesn’t feel like she has to rush to change him back.

They get so absorbed in their chat, in teasing and laughing at the book’s nonsense, drinking their fill and trading stories about their younger days, that she doesn’t notice the weather turning, the dark clouds gathering around the sun.

It’s not until the sky opens up and heavy, thick droplets hit them that she realizes that there’s been a chill in the air and clouds have darkened the sky. The wine and company had warmed her and sent her into a bit of a dizzy euphoria, so strong she hadn’t noticed anything else.

And now they are completely without shelter from a rather incredible storm.

“Shit!” Robin cries, frantically packing up their picnic. “I picked a wonderful day to take you out into the sun, didn’t I? Run for the woods, I’ve got this, just go.”

But she’s never minded the rain and in less than a minute there’s truly no way Regina could be _more_ soaked, so why bother running from it? It gives her a rush, makes her feel powerful again, reminds her of a time when her life wasn’t nearly as complicated as it now is.

She doesn’t like the cold, no, but she loves the rain.

So Regina laughs it off, though her body shakes and shivers as she helps him pack up, grabbing her cloak and corset as she runs back toward his home.

.::.

Robin tries not to notice what Regina looks like in wet linens.

The rain had been so strong she looks like she jumped into the sea, the fabric clinging to every curve, now translucent, which is unfortunate for him, because he really doesn’t need to see how beautiful her breasts are, what her nipples look like, hard and perky as she bounces and runs beside him

He tries to stop focusing on these things. Instead, he tries to focus on her sweet laughter, her smile. It’s then he notices her lips are turning a shade of purple.

Without the sun’s warmth, it’s turned cold out, and she is both cold and soaked to the bone.

“Almost there,” he calls out. “Put your cloak on, keep warm.”

“It won’t h-h-help,” she giggles and stutters back. “it’s wet, too.”

Wool repels a bit of water, but there’s only so much it can do.

“I’ll get a fire going,” Robin promises, “Right away. “Well get you warmed up, you—“

“I’m not s-scared,” she says between shaky breaths as they navigate down the windy path to his home.

“Well, then, _I_ am,” Robin says. “You look so cold.”

“I’ll survive,” she tells him. But he hears her teeth chatter as they hurry along, and he holds his breath until they get to his cave.

Robin readies himself on the fire immediately. Luckily always keeps a lit lantern by the entrance his cave these days.

For years he didn’t. For years this cave was his home because no one would pass it and consider the fact that there was human life inside.

But things changed. He was less fearful of being discovered, and well, now, with Regina, hiding from anyone who might pass by would be impossible.

He grabs the lantern and takes it towards his fire pit, working to set the logs aflame and grow the fire so she has warmth.

“I have to take this off,” she calls at him, pointing to her garment, or what used to be a garment and is now just a thin piece of fabric.

The fire is already growing, so he leaves it for a bit, carrying his lantern to his little bedroom area and setting it on. “Wrap yourself in blankets and…” he opens a drawer to his little dresser and grabs a recently cleaned shirt. “You can have one of my nightshirts.”

When he turns back to hand it to Regina, her backside is to him and she’s stripping off the sodden garment that clings to her skin.

“Oh, gods, my apologies,” Robin says quickly turning around. “I’ll tend to the fire and give you privacy.”

“Don’t apologize, I should have more modesty,” she whispers. “Just can’t wait to get this off…”

He knows how she feels, his own clothes cling to him, wet and cold and sticky, he thinks he too will change by the fire. He lights another lantern and takes out a shirt for himself and a clean pair of trousers and makes his way back to the fire, trying not to notice how the light illuminates her perfect backside.

It’s not the first time he’s admired it, Regina is not one to follow society’s rules. She’s showed up to his cave in tight riding pants that all but put that particular asset on display.

But nude, near his bed, shining in the light of his lantern and the dull glow of the growing fire….

Well, here she looks like an absolute goddess and a sinful temptation wrapped into one.

Robin is sure he’s not never a woman with a better figure in his entire life.

He groans at himself, at the stirring inside of him, at the way his body is responding to her.

He’s not an animal, yet for all the progress he’s made of late there’s still a part within him that reacts to Regina as a neanderthal would.

He owes her so much more than that, but gods, does she have to be so beautiful? He sometimes feels as if he’s being put through some grueling test to prove he can be a gentleman, to fight back his desire and baser instincts.

And this is the worst it’s ever been. He wants to grab her and kiss her breathless, run his (once again human) hands across her body and touch and taste her everywhere. Of course, when he imagines that (which he’s in the habit of doing far too often these days) Regina is panting and begging for more, and that wouldn’t happen. The best he could hope for is her enduring it, permitting it out of some sense of pity.

He tries to shake the images out of his mind and returns to the fire.

He makes quick work of changing himself and he’s just settled down to stoking the flames of the growing, warm fire as Regina approaches, her wet clothes in one hand and a blanket in the other.

She hangs her clothes next to his by the fire, then twists her hair into a single thick piece and wringing it out, water droplets falling on the stone floor.

Her hair is curlier when wet, it seems, these damp, spiraled locks scattering amongst the porcelain of her neck, the soft cotton of his shirt.

A shirt he realizes that he’s almost worn threadbare. She’s barely more covered than she was in her soaked linens.

“Oh, this feels so nice,” she murmurs as she sits beside him. She spreads out the blanket, sharing it with him without asking, huddling close. “That was quite a downpour.”

“Storms like that never last long,” Robin says, looking out at the sky. “It’ll be over soon.”

“It should be. But my clothes will take a bit to dry,” Regina points out. “You’re stuck with me for a while, I’m afraid.”

“Lucky me,” he murmurs as she nuzzles her head into his shoulder.

Gods, what is happening?

“I love the rain,” Regina says softly, still huddled into him. “I’ve loved it since…. well since Daniel and I were stuck in the rain. I had to sneak out of the house to see him one summer night, and instead of taking me to the stables, he took me to his home. Or, the home he had been building. He lived with us in the servants quarters, but he had these dreams. And he had been able to find some land to rent on the edge of town and had built a little cottage. It wasn’t finished, the kitchen wasn't quite there. And it was just one large room with a little loft, but it was all his and it was perfect for me. We… lost track of time there that night.” She smiles at Robin and shrugs. “It was our first time…. ever doing…”

“Oh?” Robin asks, a bit surprised.

“And he wanted to make it special for me,” Regina sighs. “He even wanted to marry me first. He knew he couldn’t ask my father for permission, knew we’d have to run from mother, but he still wanted to marry me. But we were in this cottage that he built, and we were young and full of life and so in love, that marriage seemed like an unnecessary step. So… it happened. And it was wonderful. But I didn’t want to leave that night, you know? In the end, I had to rush home to beat the sunrise. Then the rains came. Daniel, he was so worried about me, much like you were. But I didn’t care. The rain, the cold, it makes you feel alive. There’s something so forbidden about it that made me feel like I was being baptized in sin, as silly as it sounds. The perfect ending to a sinful night.” Regina is staring into the fire, her eyes sparkle, she seems so… pleased with herself. With that version of herself from the past.

“I climbed back to my bedroom sopping wet, feeling more alive than I had in years. My maid took one look at my clothes and smiled and winked at me. Covered for me, too, made sure my mother didn’t see them or notice that I had obviously been out in the storm. It’s then that I realized Daniel and I weren’t the secret we thought we were. I should have ended it then, but…” she swallows, pressing into Robin more. “I couldn’t. I was selfish. I loved him too much to end it, even though part of me knew we’d get discovered and have to face mother.”

“You has no way of knowing how it would end,” Robin reminds her. “Love makes you hopeful and ridiculously optimistic. And I am sure Daniel knew the risk as well as you. He went in knowing what could happen. But what is the threat of death compared to the feeling of being loved back?”

Regina chuckles darkly against his shoulder.

“I always have thought that I should have run far away from him, pushed him away, that he could get over the rejection. But then it hurts, thinking I should have to give up all those memories to spare his life.”

“We can't turn back time,” Robin tells her softly, stroking her back. “For what it is worth, I doubt Daniel regrets his time with you, even if it might have cost him his life.”

“Did you ever love before?” Regina asks, “Of all those women, was there one you felt something special for?”

“Of all the women I was with, no,” Robin admits. “There was one though… she was strong, beautiful ... a lot like you, actually. I first met her when I was fourteen. She was the daughter of a blacksmith so being with her as anything more than a romp was entirely out of the question. I felt something, I think she did too, though she spent more of our brief time together mocking me and cutting my budding ego down to a more manageable size.”

“What happened?” Regina asks.

“When I realized what I was feeling, I ran from it,” Robin shrugs. “Love wasn’t exactly an emotion men were _supposed_ to feel in my day, particularly men of my class. I was expected to be matched with another woman of prestige, to have babies with her and keep discreet affairs to satisfy any urges I might have. Love was for poets and weak men. I didn’t want to be either. So I cut off contact with her. Marian, that was her name. I ran away from her and turned to multiple other women, became a bit of a hedonist.”

“If you could have a second chance, would you have stayed with her instead?”

“I used to want that. But not anymore,” Robin admits softly. He did, for years, he thought Marian would have kept him out of trouble, away from the philandering ways that got him stuck with a vindictive witch, the euphoric yet never quite satisfying thrill of his sexual exploits could be replaced by something much more… filling. And perhaps that would have kept him away from that witch and truly happy. But now, he can’t really regret a part of the past that led to his curse, can he? He’d never have met Regina if not for it all, the whole sordid mess. And it sounds ridiculous, but he’d go through it all again a thousand times over to have a moment like this, with her clinging to him around a fire, making him feel as if he’s not some monster plus outcast, but a man.

Even though it’s nothing more than a friendship, she’s worth it. Moments like these are worth it.

She shifts to look up at him, and the look she gives him, this solemn, touching gaze, makes him think she may be able to read his mind, to understand why he can no longer regret his past mistakes.

“I can’t believe it’s _still_ raining so hard,” Robin murmurs, desperate for a change in the conversation where he doesn’t feel so terribly exposed.

“It’s approaching sunset,” Regina grimaces. “I don’t want Rochinante to be wading in the mud and flooded trail road in the dark.”

“Of course not,” Robin agrees. “Will your father worry too terribly much if you spend the night?”

“My father always worries,” Regina admits. “But this would hardly be the first time I’ve failed to come home, and he rarely even asks me where I've been anymore. Of course, he knows I’m with you. He has no doubt been observing the storm. I imagine he will draw a reasonable conclusion.”

“So you’ll stay the night?” Robin asks softly.

“Yes, I probably should,” she hums,

Her body shivers against him, so he draws her in tighter.

“I am going to make you some soup,” He pronounces.

“I’m full of wine, fruit. cheese, bread and every type of salted meat known to man,” Regina points out with a little laugh.

“A warm cider then,” Robin says, getting up. “You’ve got a chill running through you.”

He walks towards his little makeshift pantry and reaches for the jug of mulled apple cider.

He shakes it at her, and she nods. “I’m not one to turn down a free drink,” she says in this ungodly sexy way, winking at him.

He can picture her charming men and accepting drinks during her nights of rebellion, nights where she would search for a man to lay with. It must have been quite a sight to behold.

The cider warms her, that rosy glow in her cheeks as she huddles close to the fire and asks about his life before the curse.

He talks about his own oppressive parent, his father. The one who always demanded perfection. Robin never measured up when he tried his hardest, and soon he decided he’d rather not try at all. If he was constantly going to disappoint his father, he might as well enjoy himself doing it.

“I wish I had been as brave as you,” Regina laments. “Until mother left I tried everything in my power to please her. Falling in love with Daniel was… hard on my conscious. I knew where my feelings were, but I hated knowing how it would upset my mother. It was not even the fear of her retaliation that made me feel guilty. Just the fact she’d hate me for it, view me as a failure. I always wanted to make her proud. Even when I knew I’d have to do awful things to win that pride.”

“Parents are dangerous things,” Robin murmurs, kissing the top of her head. “They can lure you into darkness better than any witch or siren.”

“I think… in some ways, I was lucky she left. Even more fortunate that magic started to dry up. Had it not, I’m not sure what would have become of me. If she used her influence and magic on me, combined with my misplaced sense of rage I had over Daniel’s death… I think I would have become quite evil.”

“I doubt it,” Robin declares. “Though perhaps you wouldn’t have had your tavern exploits in the surrounding villages.”

Regina giggles. “Definitely _not._ Those were idiotic moments in my life, I was lucky I didn’t get hurt wandering around like that. And the exploits themselves were rather empty, though thrilling in the moment, I suppose, and amusing enough to relive. I know I needed something like that to get through that time, but it would have been safer to take up writing. Or knitting.”

“You don’t strike me as a knitter,” Robin says softly.

She takes another swing of cider. “No, I’m an adventurer. That’s what my father says. I’m drawn to danger and to new experiences like a moth to a flame. It makes his life as my father terrifying, I fear. I try to keep the risks I take at a minimum for his benefit. But I can’t ever seem to stop.”

She fills her mug with more cider and settles back into him, wrapping the shared blanket around her.

“Is that what you’re doing here?” he teases, “Having an adventure with someone new and potentially dangerous?”

Regina groans and looks up at him. “You’re not the least bit dangerous. I’m here all the time because you’re the best friend I’ve ever had. And I like you far, far too much.”

He can smell the alcohol on her breath, a reminder he can’t quite read anything into this.

“You should get to bed,” he whispers. He shouldn’t - she’s drunk, but he presses another kiss to the top of her head. “You’ll want to head back early tomorrow so your father knows not to worry.”

“Mmm,” Regina agrees, yawning. “But I’m too tired to move.”

Robin laughs. “Shall I carry you, then?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I just need a moment, I—“

But he can’t help it, liquid courage is also running through _his_ veins, after all. He stands and lifts her easily, the blanket they’ve shared now billowing around her small frame. She just laughs and wraps a hand around his neck, letting him lead her to the darkened end of the

cave.

He drops her off on the bed with a smile. “Goodnight,” he says, but she’s still holding on to his hand, preventing him from walking away.

“I’m not taking your bed,” she insists. “I can take the floor this time, on top of all those blankets you have. I’m intruding, it’s only fair you keep your bed.”

“You’re my guest, and I’m insisting,” he argues

She shakes her head furiously. “I’m younger and I’ve seen how you grab at your back lately, sleeping on the stone floor does you no good, old man.”

It’s said tongue in cheek and makes him laugh, but as cute as she is, she won’t win this battle.

“Please, Regina, it’s my right to insist, it’s my—“

“Oh just come in here with me,” she groans, shifting to the opposite end, pulling at him to join her.

“Oh that I definitely can not do,” Robin breathes, as much as he’s itching to hold her and touch her all night. “Darling, it’s not right, you’re—“

“It’s the only way I’m sleeping in the bed,” she says strictly.

“You’ve had quite a bit to drink,” he points out. “I can’t take advantage of you.”

“You’re not,” she insists, “You’re helping me sleep. I’m not going to kiss you. I promise. Just come into this bed and keep me warm. Why is your bed so far from the fire?”

He gives up. He takes off his trousers and lies next to her in his nightshirt, feeling far too exposed.

“The fire needs to be near the cave’s entrance so it doesn’t get too smoky in here, I learned,” Robin explains. “But I like to sleep in a part more tucked away. If anyone should see the fire and come in, I have a chance to… prepare for what might come. It’s a huge cave. I was lucky to find something so unoccupied and protected.”

“You never thought to build a home?” Regina asks sleepily. “A house with a little chimney so your fires could be close?”

“I was shit at it, but I made one, once,” Robin admits. He’s shifted so he’s lying on his side facing her, and she is doing the same. “Took me forever, didn’t hold together well, drew in curious visitors and wanderers. They’d take one look at me and run off. Then I became a spectacle, the pigman of the forest. See, people rarely go knocking on cave doors, which makes this a bit better for my situation.”

He watches her face as she smiles sweetly up at him. “I’m sorry you had to deal with all that for so long,” she whispers. There’s the slightest of breezes, the wind of the storm making its way inside. It catches a few of her curls sweeps them forward so they hang across her cheek.

Robin brushes the strands back softly, tangling his fingers in her hair and combing through them.

She closes her eyes and sighs.

“I’ve wanted to do this for so long,” he whispers, twirling a lock around a finger as he combs through it.

“What? Run your fingers through my hair?” Regina giggles.

It’s then he realizes how incredibly creepy and inappropriate he sounds and he stutters to explain.

“When your hair isn’t tied back it gets everywhere. You never seem to mind. The wind sweeps it up and it covers your eyes, over your cheeks and mouth, even. I’m always wanting to brush it back, but… I couldn’t. Not with those… other hooves of mine. Now though….” He brushes back another lock. “It’s better.”

“You could have touched me like this with your old hands,” Regina murmurs sleepily. “I wouldn’t have minded, not in the least.”

“I know,” he answers, because he does, he knows this about her now. “But _I_ would have minded.”

“I’m glad you have your hands back, then,” Regina yawns.

“Me too, very much so,” Robin answers. “Are you warm enough? I do have a very small area where I can set a fire - there's a slight crack in the cave ceiling that I patch up during the rainy season, but—“

“Robin. Stop fussing over me. I am just fine,” Regina grumbles, cuddling into him. “You’re warming me.”

Gods, this is torture. And she _knows_ he loves her. If she wasn’t drunk right now he’d assume she was testing him in some odd way. It almost feels unfair, and yet he wouldn’t trade this moment for anything.

He lies on his back and lets her cuddle close to him, lets her sleep on his chest. It’s already aching painfully, but when she settles on his heart, all he can do is remember to breathe and think about mathematical equations as he struggles to keep his hands and feelings to herself.

Her sleep is contagious, thank the gods, and it’s a matter of moments before her steady, sweet breathing pulls him into his own deep dreams, thoughts of her.

.::.

Regina wakes feeling slightly dizzy, her head not exactly throbbing, but definitely feeling the amount of wine and cider she had consumed over the last day. She’s felt much, much worse in her day, this is almost a delightful dizzy feeling she knows will soon go away, if she could get a few more moments of rest…

It’s then she notices her pillow is Robin’s chest. Her leg is draped around his waist, her arm similarly wrapped around him.

She did all this, knowing how he feels about her. Practically threw herself at him, all because she wanted comfort and warmth.

What the hell was she thinking?

“Oh, gods…” Regina moans, moving off him gingerly. Her body has molded itself to him overnight and it protests when she moves, the ache of atrophied muscles a painful reminder that she’s been all over him for hours.

“Good morning,” Robin murmurs sleepily. “Is something wrong?”

“I just…” she looks at him, into those blue eyes that are so clear, so free of any judgment or frustration— both of which she deserves. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I shouldn’t have…”

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you talk me into bed,” Robin groans. “I mean, not _that_ way, but the—“

“No, no, I’m glad you slept here. I was right, neither of us deserved to sleep on the cold stone floor. But I didn’t have to…” she motions to him, “Use you as my personal mattress.”

“I didn’t mind,” Robin murmurs back, turning to face her on the bed. “I haven't told you this, but I think you know… it’s been so long since someone has been close to me, touched me with anything but disgust or curiosity. And you’ve been…” She watches his eyes as they begin to water, his adam's apple bob as he swallows, “You’ve never acted that way, and every little innocuous moment or little brush of your hands, things I know mean nothing to you, to me, it’s been really wonderful. Makes me feel human again.”

“You are human,” she reminds. “You’ve never _not_ been human.”

“I know that now,” Robin nods. “But I’ve been so alone for so long, I think I may have forgotten that.”

She places a hand on his cheek, then scratches up to his scalp, running her hands through his short — but growing— hair.

“You are very much human. And I shouldn’t be throwing myself at you for affection like that. It’s no way to treat a person.”

“You were not throwing yourself at me. And trust me when I say I didn’t mind at all. Even with how I feel. I know what this is and what it is not. I’ll never cross that line with you.”

He says it with such sincerity, and it’s meant to be reassuring, so why does it make her feel so lost and miserable?

She wants to say something, to tell him everything about her feelings, but that’s selfish and unfair. It bonds him to more of this isolation.

She swallows down the words but doesn’t pull away from him just yet. They lie together, trading gentle touches that can hardly count as platonic as they talk about the odd weather, the eccentric merchants in town, anything but the very large elephant in the room.

She has to leave eventually. There is no denying it, it’s a bit painful saying goodbye. He’s changing fast. It’s only a matter of time before he fully transforms and all this comes to an end.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter! Thanks for reading this unconventional, silly little story, I had fun writing it.

In the next few weeks, try as they might, Robin keeps the pig-like nose. The rest of him, however, is completely human. His hands are back to what Regina assumes they looked like roughly a hundred years ago. His skin is light beige instead of pinkish. His body is _definitely_ all human, or perhaps if anything, it’s a body like the artists carved into marble, defined, strong, annoyingly distracting.

She can’t figure out why the nose is staying.

Since their night together, there's been a shift in the mood and general tone of their meetups. They are more comfortable around one another, Robin in particular. If she didn’t know better she’d call his behavior almost… flirty, at times. She leans against him as she reads now, he frequently rubs her back or plays with her hand as he talks to her.

It’s all rather intimate — even for her, she can’t imagine what it’s like for him.

He’s been all on his own and isolated for longer, but these past two years have been rather lonely for her, too. Outside of her father, she hasn’t had anyone to trust or confide in, and she’s had to hold in so much to avoid him worrying about her.

Robin is different. There’s only one thing she has to keep secret, and it’s her own misguided feelings toward him.

But she’s able to talk to him about practically anything, about things she hides with others. He’s her best friend, her best friend that she’s fallen in love with. That’s going to make things a bit complicated once he changes enough to rejoin society (and they _will change_ that nose of his, she just knows it).

In fact, if she focuses on just changing the nose and not the curse as a whole…

She grabs one of the spellbooks she’s looked at enough to nearly memorize. And there it is. A possible key to everything

“Maybe the curse has been broken already and we don’t know it,” Regina murmurs, reading over the spell and its impact on a person. “Perhaps the nose is just a different spell altogether.”

“Possibly,” Robin shrugs. “How would we know?”

“It would be difficult for us to know. Someone with magic would have to spot it. See, this here,” Regina points to her page in the book. “It’s a sort of take on a glamour charm. It’s easy enough to spot and undo, but it’s unclear how it can be broken without magic. There’s got to be a way to do it, but I can’t find it.”

“You will,” Robin assures. “Take your time. How can I help?”

“No, I think we might not be able to do this alone.”

Regina worries if it’s purely up to her she will unintentionally delay this for too long just because she fears what will happen the moment this curse ends. She should stop assuming he will leave her once he fully appreciates her social status just because everyone else has. He’s different. He will stay her friend until he finds a woman, and perhaps even after they marry he will try. He will try, but he won’t be successful. That’s just life.

She made her choices. She needs to stop being selfish and help him the way he has always helped her.

“We should ask Maleficent,” Regina decides. “You’ve done everything she’s said, haven’t you?”

Robin nods. “To my knowledge, that is.”

“She’s a better resource than any book,” Regina decides. “It would take me forever to answer questions she would know in an instant.”

She slams the book shut and tosses it on the forest ground. “Let’s go.”

“Now?” Robin asks.

Regina shrugs. “What else do you have to do today?”

“Nothing, I just…” She watches him scratch the back of his head, his fingers running through the growing hair. “It just seems rather soon.”

It’s not soon at all. She’s known for a good week that this is the final option, the easy ending to his curse. She’s put it off for selfish reasons, for fear of losing him. But she can’t do this anymore. Not when there’s a clear answer, something they can ask Maleficent that seems to fit perfectly.

“You have been cursed for nearly one-hundred years. I think you’ve waited long enough. Come on. We could take Rocinante to Maleficent’s, but…”

“But I am between horses at the moment, and you don’t want to overload her with two people?” Robin asks.

“Well, only I direct Rocinante. Something tells me you wouldn’t enjoy riding behind me.”

Regina smiles at him. She watches as his face screws up first in discomfort, then in thought.

She loves joking around with him. She hopes this doesn’t go away. Not anytime soon, anyway.

“Let’s not overtax your lovely horse,” Robin says, his smile all wry and charming. “Now, are you sure you’re dressed for an unexpected trek through the woods?”

She looks down at her garment and shrugs. She could have worn riding pants today, but she’s been fond of wearing dresses in this autumn weather. This one is a deep, dark red and made of velvet. It’s one of her favorite dresses.

She’s taken to wearing her more flattering outfits lately, yet another embarrassing tell-tale sign of her feelings.

What was she thinking when she dressed this morning? Oh, forget it, she knows what she was thinking. She wanted to draw his eyes, wanted him to look at her and blush, wanted to feel _wanted,_ attractive, like other women of her class (or former class, as it is).

“You’d be surprised how comfortable this dress is,” she mutters. It’s not a lie. The corsets are so restricting, the velvet is warm and more freeing to wear.

It’s also an expensive fabric she’s about to ruin by getting it dirty and sweaty in a forest hike. But this may be the last time she ever gets to see him without the knowledge of who she really is in his eyes, and she thinks it’s worth it all along.

.::.

“Suppose you’re right,” Robin says halfway through the track. “Suppose this is just a glamour spell and Maleficent is able to undo it. What then? What price will we have to pay to get the glamour removed? Even if Maleficent knows how to undo this, there’s a price, right?”

“I assume so,” Regina shrugs. “She can tell us the price when we get there.”

Robin nods.

“I don’t have much in the way of money, but I can get it if needed. I think lack of jewels is how many people end up giving away their rights to their firstborns and that,” Robin mutters.

She laughs. “And do you want children?”

“Well,” Robin lets the question hang in the air for a few beats. “I suppose I do, yes.”

She can see him as a father, those protective instincts, the level of caring and compassion he has for those who cannot defend themselves. He’s a father in the making.

And he deserves that.

“With the right woman of course,” Robin adds softly. He’s looking at her _that_ way again. She almost can’t believe it, after everything, if he’s even picturing a life with her…

She wants that, too. But it can’t happen. It hurts even more just hoping for it, just wanting it even knowing it is not to be.

She might as well put those fantasies to rest for good for both of them. Even if it involves bringing up something she desperately tries to hide even from herself.

“I don’t think I can have children,” Regina blurts out. It’s an odd feeling, relief and anxiety all at once, to finally let out that worry and fear and guilt, to just say it out loud and let the worst come for her.

Robin stops dead in his tracks and turns to her. “What?”

“I… I can’t…” her vision goes blurry, tears threaten to spill so she turns back to the path before them and trudges on. “I don’t know what my mother did to me, or was going to do, so perhaps there was some sort of protective spell on me before I ever decided... but I couldn’t… you know, I couldn’t leave myself _unprotected_ when I was out there doing what I was doing. I knew what she _could_ do to a child of mine, a child that belonged to her family.”

“What are you saying?” Robin asks.

She turns to see he’s stopped still in his tracks, his jaw wide open.

He’s judging her. He sees her as a monster, who wouldn’t? What type of woman would curse herself to be barren?

She covers the pain with anger and defiance, it’s a path she knows well by now.

“What am I saying?” she asks, putting on that devilish smile, that mask she can wear when she feels particularly evil. “I’m saying I concocted a strong remedy to avoid—”

“As many women do,” Robin interrupts. “Regina, that doesn’t mean—”

“Oh the teas, the herbs, the sponges,” Regina snaps. “Those don’t work so well, or do you think every child is planned and wanted?”

“There are sheaths, there are—”

“Any method that depends upon a man to use it is not a method I trust. I used something from a spellbook. I don’t have magic, but the herbs were strong and the spell warned of permanency if not done correctly. And I doubt a heartbroken daughter of a witch with no magic could perform it correctly. I took the risk anyway.” She stares into his horrified eyes, daring him to call her all the names she harbors inside herself. “I told you I’m not someone you can really love, did I not? Don’t look so surprised.”

“Regina, darling…”

She almost can’t believe it’s his voice, so soft and caring. She looks at him incredulously.

“Don’t think I’m not fully aware of what you sacrificed when you enacted that. You did it to save others, to protect a future child from your mother. You love children, and I know it. You made a huge sacrifice. It must have been an incredibly difficult decision to make.”

“I could have just abstained and avoided this if I were such a caring, lovely person,” Regina scoffs.

“No,” Robin shakes his head, “No, you know even if you lived as a nun you could have been taken against your will, right?”

She’s surprised he’s even been able to think that far ahead, but then, she remembers how she first met Robin, and of course he’s aware of the dangers of rape.

“And,” he adds, “if you remained a virgin your mother could have used you another way. Didn’t you tell me that once? That she wanted you pure for a reason, and that scared you?”

“Yes,” Regina answers, as if in a daze. She lets a tear fall down her cheek. How has he connected all of this?

“I’m so sorry you had to make that choice. And that you felt you had to keep it from me for so long—”

“It wasn’t anything you needed to know,” she snaps back. “It’s not that I kept it from you, it’s that—”

“It’s not about me wanting to know, it’s about you not feeling comfortable sharing,” Robin explains as he walks slowly toward her. “Regina, this changes nothing with regards to how I feel about you. Did you think it would?”

“I don’t… I don’t know,” Regina says, her hands are shaking, she can’t feel her legs. If he’s being honest, if he really doesn’t mind, if he really still _loves_ her…

She can’t talk about this anymore, so she focuses on the path in front of them. “We’re almost there, just a bit more of this easy stretch…”

He exhales in a way that makes her think he’s frustrated or annoyed, so she turns back to him, staring blankly at him, urging him to speak.

He looks back at her like he’s about to say something serious, but he must think better of it.

“Glad we are almost there,” he says too cheerfully to sound sincere, “My snout is getting cold, and it’s not pretty when I get a runny nose, just letting you know...”

Regina giggles anyway at the poor attempt at humor. The mood shifts dramatically, away from feelings or lack thereof.

.::.

Regina is infuriating. Infuriating, but lovely and wonderful. He loves her so much his heart aches at the thought of her, at the thought of being close, having a future at all with her in it.

Sometimes it seems she feels the same way. It had felt that way on the night they shared a bed together, not just the way she pressed herself against him but the way she confided in him, the words she said, how she looked at him.

He had thought it incredibly idiotic to even entertain these thoughts, of course, given everything Regina is, the thought she might love him back seems ridiculous at best.

But he feels something for her so deeply, perhaps it had him hallucinating those feelings being returned.

Because now it seems obvious what she’s been doing all along. She’s given him friendship, she’s tried so hard to make a point that he is not repulsive or worthy of being shunned. But then he fell in love with her, and she’s been trying to spare his feelings and turn him down politely. That’s why she keeps telling him how bad a match she is for him, revealing things she thinks will turn him away from her (they don’t, they somehow make him love her more).

Perhaps Regina is afraid if she’s direct with him it will set him back, ruin all the progress he’s made. But the way he feels about her, every time he sees her, every time she shares a different part of her… he knows. This won’t go away.

But it seems Regina needs to believe it is going away, or at least that he’s moving forward without clinging to the hope of being with her.

So Robin should tone down the hungry looks at her, the obvious love drunk words. He can do it. He can keep things light and happy and not focus on the throbbing of his heart. He can assure her that he’s going to be okay without her.

The rest of the walk to Maleficent’s, he tries to keep things as bright as possible.

“You don’t quite believe this is going to work, do you?” Regina asks after a bit of small talk.

“I actually do believe it will work,” he answers honestly. “You seem confident. I’ve learned not to doubt you.”

“You should be more excited,” Regina directs, looking at him with a frown. “You are about to be free. Able to walk in the sunshine with the townsfolk, leave your cave and trade it in for… well, I don’t know. What do you plan on doing once you’ve lost that nose of yours?”

“Well…” Robin draws out. “I guess the first thing I would do is return to the Locksley estate.”

Regina stops in her tracks and stares at him with some confusion.

“Who… who do you plan on seeing there?”

“My father is dead, my dear cousin is dead, and his son, also dead, that’s part of the passage of time, isn’t it? But my cousin’s son’s son, he runs the estate now. And he should have been told my story. It’s in the family book. And my father made sure to say should I ever return and manage to get the curse erased, I’d be taken care of. Financially, I mean”

“You have seen them already. In fact, you should go to your estate _now,”_ Regina argues. “Let them see the curse before and then after you change back. There’s no proof that the curse is real or you are who you say you are without that, is there?”

“Well…” Robin shrugs. “There are paintings of the family in the estate. And my story is written down. And I have this.”.He pulls back his sleeve and reveals his tattoo. She’s noticed it before but never thought much of it.

“It’s my family‘s coat of arms. The design is quite intricate, and this tattoo has specific requirements for how it must be made. It would be incredibly hard to fake. My family will accept this as proof of my heritage.”

Regina narrows her eyes, and she looks a bit put out over the entire plan. “And then what will they do? Give you part of their fortune? It seems you are relying too heavily on them actually believing you and, even if they do, on them wanting to help some long lost ancestor.”

“Well, part of the fortune was reserved for me. They most likely found a way to spend it, I have no doubt, but I can answer questions about our family, I can prove who I am, and, you know, at minimum, I should be able to win my name back and at least some boarding.”

He swears he can see a flicker of sadness goes across her face before she asks, “So, you want your status and title back?”

“Well…” he draws out, “It will certainly give me a leg up, wouldn’t it? Having a place to stay for a while — I could move back around Sherwood, the name carries some cache, say I’m a long lost cousin or something. People will trust me, perhaps let me in on some investments… or at the bare minimum, I can make contacts and they will buy whatever I can sell, perhaps out of pity. But enough to get me on my feet and earn a living.”

Regina clears her throat and says softly, “the best way to make money, of course, would be to wait to be matched with a nice girl with a sizeable dowery.”

He hears the hint of judgment in her voice. Perhaps this is another test. One she thinks he’s failing.

“I won’t marry a woman for her money,” Robin answers. “I’d only marry for love.”

There’s a pause, too long of one, as they dredge in the woods together, and he panics, worrying he’s yet again made her feel uncomfortable. So he adds, “If I fall in love with someone with a nice dowry that will just be an added bonus.”

Regina’s laugh is hollow and forced. The tension only grows.

“What is it?” he asks. “Something is bothering you.”

“It’s nothing,” she lies — obviously lies — she won’t even look at him and he has no idea what he has done.

He doesn’t know how to respond, how to fix this sour mood she’s fallen into, so he lets the silence surround them as they continue to close in on their destination.

.::.

Regina has gone and made her last day with him awkward and awful and she knows it.

She’s been actively trying to push him away, so she doesn’t get to be upset to hear he has a plan for his life that doesn’t involve her. He put himself on the line for her and she has been rejecting him, subtly and not so subtly.

She has been pulling back because she wanted Robin to do exactly this — make plans and set up a future without her.

But now that he’s actually doing it, it feels all wrong.

Perhaps it’s because he finally knows every last secret about her and he is _still_ here, didn’t spit on her in disgust, didn’t talk to her about repenting her mistakes, or even how karma had taken its toll on her for her crime of preventing children from born. He accepted it, as he accepts everything about her.

The rest of the walk to Maleficent’s feels like a death march. Robin is suspicious of her mood, she knows that, and she is walking ahead, leading the way, grateful he can’t see her face for most of their trip. Because if he could look into her eyes he would certainly be noticing how upset she is and he’d surely have something wonderful or comforting to say. Something that would make her miss him even more when he eventually has to leave her.

When Regina reaches the front door and knocks it feels like she’s already saying goodbye.

But no one answers (odd, for a witch who is known for being a shut-in).

Regina continues to knock, to call her. Then she gives up and attempts to force her way in.

Until Robin stops her.

“She’s not here,” Robin soothes. “There’s always another day, right?”

“Yes,” she mutters, “but I really wanted it to be today.”

“I’ve waited this long. I can wait a bit longer,” he says almost too cheerfully.

So now she has to sit a few more days, or even weeks waiting for him to change, waiting for him to leave her.

“I was thinking,” he says, his voice more soft, more tempered, “now that you’ve shown me where Maleficent’s home is, there’s no reason you need to escort me back here again.”

Regina’s blood rushes cold. “What?” she asks, her voice both angry and insulted.

Robin tilts his head and shrugs. “I think maybe it might be for the best.”

“You don’t want to see me anymore?” she asks, and oh, she’s not angry. She’s _hurt,_ and you can tell by her tone, she sounds like she’s on the verge of tears which, well, she is.

“Regina…” his voice is all buttery and soulful, “I am not oblivious here. I know you’re uncomfortable with how I feel, and you’re worried about that and worried about me. I don’t want you to worry anymore. You’ve given me more than enough. I will be just fine on my own. You can let me go.”

“I don’t _want_ to let you go,” she hears herself say. She’s almost shocked at the courage it takes to admit that. Where did that come from?

If he’s really going to leave she might as well have the strength to tell him what she truly feels.

“I see the way you look at me every time I make it clear that I have feelings for you,” he tells her.

She feels guilt rise up in her, she never wanted him to think this of himself. She should have explained she was trying to protect him from herself, protect his future from someone toxic like her, but he wouldn’t hear it, he’s been blinded by feelings and it’s too late to change his mind.

“Robin, I don’t think you’re interpreting things correctly at all."

Robin continues, “No, I know you don’t hate me, you're not disgusted with me. We’re friends. But whenever I slip up, whenever I make it clear my feelings for you are a bit more than friendship, you just look at me like…” He trails off as if he can’t really explain it. Regina tries to protest, but he holds his hand up. “Listen, it’s fine. I’ve made peace with it. I keep falling deeper into love with you, and it’s worrying you. Don’t worry. I’ve already started thinking of a new life that doesn’t have you burdened by me in it. I may have this nose for my whole life, but I’ll still be alright, I swear. You’re a wonderful person, Regina, but I know what I was when you met me, both inside and outside, and I don’t think anyone could feel—“

All that uncertainty and bottled emotions bursts free in some final showing of courage. Regina kisses him, angrily almost insulted by the way he thinks she’s seeing him, she hates it.

She’ll be damned if she lets him forever think she was burdened by him, that she didn’t feel the same love he did.

He’s surprised by her action, she hears his startled gasp as soon as she tugs on his shirt collar and pulls him towards her. But then he’s kissing her back, and it’s... well it’s like a jolt of lightning. Everything goes all warm and bright, the feeling of his mouth on hers after all this time is indescribable, she’s hungry for this type of affection, clearly, and oh, they are definitely compatible, he’s an amazing kisser and she swears she’s seeing fireworks behind her eyes, pops of bright color bleeding through the forest foliage as they trade intimate kisses.

It takes Regina longer than it should to discover that this isn’t a romance novel, that the warmth and light she’s feeling isn’t only in her head.

It is contrite to call what happened magic, but in this case, there truly _is_ magic.

She pulls back just to make sure her hypothesis is correct, and sure enough, Robin is staring back at her, perfect eyes, lips, cheeks, and now, a perfect _nose._

Regina smiles, tears of happiness rolling down her cheeks as she does.

“You’re… you’re healed,” she laughs, running a finger down the bridge of his nose.

Robin looks confused for a moment, until he wrinkles what used to be his snout, and realizes it is no more.

His eyes go wide.

“Was that— was that true loves kiss?” He asks.

Regina can only giggle, throwing her arms around him. “I believe it was.”

He lifts her up and spins her around in his arms.

“You _love_ me? You love me, that’s what this means?”

His eyes are watery now, his smile so wide she wonders if it hurts.

“Yes, I love you. And your nose is also normal. The spell is broken,” she points out.

“Brilliant, but not the most exciting news at the moment,” Robin mutters.

They trade happy, euphoric kisses between laughs and tears, both still incredulous at what had happened.

Regina is oblivious to the sound of someone approaching them in the woods. Until that person calls out.

“It didn’t _have_ to be true love’s kiss,” Maleficent says matter-of-factly.

Regina slides out of Robin’s arms and turns toward the sound of her voice.

Maleficent looks like she belongs in a palace. She’s even stronger looking than before, in a beautiful green dress that clings to every curve, ruby red lips and her hair in those beautiful, long waves. She is staring at them as if she’s thoroughly unsurprised, so smug and pleased with herself Regina might be annoyed if she were capable of any emotion besides pure elation at the moment.

“We focus a lot on true love because it only can occur in the right conditions. Loving and being loved in return means you accept yourself, you love yourself, you know that even as you are — not as the person you hope to be — you’re worthy of someone’s devotion. Physical acts can convey love, kissing amongst the more innocent of touches. Robin needed to accept himself as he was, even with the snout. To not see himself as a monster, or worry about what others will see him as. To know his worth isn’t defined by others.”

She looks at Regina and shakes her head. “Not so easy, is it?”

It’s not. Regina has struggled with this her whole life. And even now, as an outcast who people see as a whore or a witch, she struggles to see herself as worthy.

But now, we’ll, she has the love of a wonderful man, she’s helped a powerful witch gain her magic back, she’s helped a man change inside and out… she is going to embrace herself, flaws and all, for she is capable of good in this world.

“Sorry I had to hide from you,” Maleficent calls out. “I just thought it would be better if you two figured this out on your own.

“Thank you so much, Maleficent,” Regina says, still unable to stop looking at Robin, at the way he’s looking at her.

“Thank _you,_ little one,” Mal says back. “We will talk more one day soon. There’s so much to talk about. But it’s been a long day for you. For now, I’ll leave you.”

She disappears again, proofing into a billowing plume of purple smoke.

And then she’s alone with Robin in the forest again.

He lifts her back into his arms and kisses her, holds her tight.

When they part she’s a bit breathless, a bit dizzy and drunk on emotion.

“What now?” Robin asks playfully.

“Marry me,” She asks, not even asks, orders, in a breathless, desperate voice.

Robin chuckles and kisses the tip of her nose.

“I know I’ve learned a lot about the true role of women and gender equality,” he smiles, “but there still are some things I think a man ought to do. Why don’t you leave the proposing up to me?”

“You? Nah. You’d only screw it up,” Regina teases.

“Mm, we’ll see. Will you introduce me to your father? I have something to discuss with him.”

Regina raises her eyebrow even though she knows his intentions are pure, she wants to give him a hard time.

“I’m not inquiring on a dowery. I’m not even going to ask permission,” he promises, “I just want to assure him I will be a good man to you.”

Those words have her helpless to prevent another passionate snogging session that goes on for far too long until she’s able to pull herself away.

“We ought to get going. It’s a long journey and it’s almost nightfall.”

He nods, then dips down to kiss her again. She’s sure she will crumble the second his lips hit hers and they will spend the next several hours in the forest together trading kisses instead of going home to a nice warm fire, and she can’t have that, so she peels herself away somehow, covering her lips with her hand to block him.

“We really need to go,” she presses a kiss to his cheek and wiggles free of his grasp, holding onto his arm and pulling him down the forest path, “We can do more of that later.”

Robin groans in that cheeky, cute way and follows her as she walks ahead of him.

“Do you think you’ll ever stop bossing me around?” Robin jokes.

“Yes,” she says truthfully. When he looks downright confused by the answer, she adds plainly, “when pigs fly.”

Robin laughs at that and slings an arm around her, holding her tight as they walk through the forest.

He is no longer a pig in any sense of the term, but he looks so happy and light at this moment, she knows a part of him is indeed soaring.

And she is right there beside him.


End file.
